Notes
T
he source materials I relied on to write this book filled multiple file cabinets, and the hun-
dreds of hours of interviews I conducted—with members of the Lacks family, scientists, journ-
alists, legal scholars, bioethicists, health policy experts, and historians—fill several shelves
worth of notebooks. I have not listed all of those experts in these notes, but many are thanked
in the acknowledgments or cited by name in the book.
Because my sources are too extensive to list in their entirety, these notes feature a selec-
tion of some of the most valuable, with a focus on those that are publicly available. For addi-
tional information and resources, visit RebeccaSkloot.com.
These notes are organized by chapter, with two exceptions: Since the Lacks family and
George Gey appear throughout many chapters, I have consolidated my notes about them and
listed them immediately below. If a chapter is not listed in the notes, it means the source ma-
terial for that chapter is described in these consolidated entries about Gey and the Lackses.
Henrietta Lacks and Her Family
To re-create the story of Henrietta’s life and the lives of her relatives, I relied on interviews
with her family, friends, neighbors, and experts on the time and place in which they lived, as
well as family audio and video recordings, and unedited B-roll from the BBC documentary The
Way of All Flesh. I also relied on the journals of Deborah Lacks, medical records, court docu-
ments, police records, family photographs, newspaper and magazine reports, community
newsletters, wills, deeds, and birth and death certificates.
George Gey and His Lab