The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

mayor’s office. He asked Howard Jones to contribute an article recording his memories of dia- gnosing Henrietta’s tumor. Jones w ...

about our mother be true? Not knowing who to go to for understanding. No one from the med- ical field took the time. Then, witho ...

money to make and give away Henrietta Lacks T-shirts, and someone else made Henrietta Lacks pens. The local papers wrote about t ...

her mother had cured cancer and everyone should just calm down. Then she asked Mary to tell the story about seeing her mother’s ...

kins scientists to provide access to the cultures is perhaps the principal reason for the great benefits that have derived from ...

He told Deborah he needed to read her mother’s medical records to investigate how the doctors had treated her, and to document a ...

Cofield came back and learned that the family had denied him access, he yelled and deman- ded copies of the records until a secu ...

hair and selling chips, candy, and cigarettes. Her store was being robbed regularly, and she was getting just as many court mail ...

records. And for the first time, she learned that her sister had been committed to a mental in- stitution called Crownsville. Sh ...

ing-down building where Henrietta went to school. While I was on the road, I’d leave mes- sages for Deborah every few days, hopi ...

this last year. I swore I was never talkin to nobody about my mother again.” She sighed. “But here I am ... I hope I don’t regre ...

something always happens and I go back into hiding.” I told her Lengauer wanted her to come into his lab. “He wants to say thank ...

where it was dark,” Deborah told me. “The door opened up and she looked straight ahead and saw all these cages. She started yell ...

“You just never know,” Deborah said, fishing two more articles from the pile and handing them to me. One was called HUMAN, PLANT ...

and send me home.” She reached over, flipped the book open, and pointed. “He autographed it for me,” she said, rolling her eyes. ...

T he next day, Deborah called my room from the front desk as if nothing had happened. “Come on downstairs,” she said. “It’s time ...

don’t know what gonna happen to Little Alfred then. I’m afraid he learnin too much already.” Little Alfred was always beating up ...

As Deborah and the boys and I walked from the car toward the front door, Deborah cleared her throat loudly and nodded toward a h ...

ing cooped up alone inside. It was in the nineties with dizzying humidity, but neither of us wanted me going in that apartment a ...

Suddenly, Deborah appeared beside me with a glass of water. “Just thought you might be thirsty,” she said, her voice stern like ...