Henrietta Lacks: The Extraordinary Cells That Transformed Medicine – Lawsuit Settlement Reached

2023-08-02 06:31:00

72 years ago, this American died of cancer in Baltimore. Its cells considered extraordinary, taken illegally, have enabled laboratories around the world to develop treatments. A financial agreement was reached on Tuesday with his family.

By The editorial staff with AFP – 08:31 | updated at 08:32

It was the bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, published in 2010, which gave the story a worldwide impact: in 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old American, died cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

During attempts to cure her, cells from her tumor had been removed and passed on to a researcher without her knowing anything regarding it. He quickly realized that his cells had extraordinary qualities: they might be grown in vitro, ie outside the human body, and multiply ad infinitum.

Cells that bear his name

Renamed HeLa cells, they have since enabled laboratories around the world to develop vaccines – especially once morest polio -, cancer treatments and certain cloning techniques, an industry that is worth billions of dollars. Progress of which Henrietta Lacks’ family knew nothing until the 1970s and of which they only truly understood the scope thanks to the work of the American medical journalist Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

In 2021, the family of Henrietta Lacks had filed a lawsuit in Maryland once morest Thermo Fisher, a biotechnology company, accusing it of having profited from the commercialization of the cells. “They have been using his cells for 70 years and the Lacks family has received nothing in return for this theft,” denounced his granddaughter Kimberly Lacks.

A deal on his 103rd birthday

A complaint that resulted on Tuesday, the day of Henrietta Lacks’ 103rd birthday: her family’s lawyers announced that they had reached an agreement with Thermo Fisher to end the legal proceedings. “The parties are satisfied to have found a way to resolve this matter outside of the courts,” they said in a press release, specifying that “the terms of the agreement will remain confidential”. The multinational responded with a statement using the same wording.

Henrietta Lacks’ contributions to modern medicine “changed and saved many lives”, said on her Twitter account (renamed “X”) Ben Crump, a civil rights expert and who had notably represented George’s family. Floyd.

In 2021, the 87-year-old son of Henrietta Lacks received an award from the director of the World Health Organization, to pay tribute to his mother.

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