CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 401
more true in the case of cancer than of other diseases as Priscilla Wald
has shown conclusively (Contagious12). Instead, cancer did and does
interact with socio-cultural axes of difference, chief among them class,
gender,andrace.Thus,"therearedeepculturalandpoliticalthemesthat
run through the various incarnations of cancer" (Mukherjee xvii, 181).
This is true even beyond obvious examples such as breast or prostate
cancers which have their highest incidence among African Americans
("CancerFactsandFigures"):"Becauseoftheuniqueculturalandsocial
histories attached to specific populations in the United States, each of
these areas has an impact on women and minorities that inevitably
questions our presumptions regarding individual autonomy" and also, I
might add, presumptions about the equal exposure to health risks
(Holloway 6).^95 Race, gender, and also (although somewhat under-
investigated in this context) class are important variables in cancer
research, treatment, and, most importantly, in the cancer experience
itself. They leak into the ways cancer is lived, individually and
collectively.^96
A case that might illustrate this, a case, moreover, that has attained
some notoriety, both in the medical community and also the general
public: the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman from
thepoorquartersofEastBaltimore,Maryland.Lacks,awifeandmother
of five, died of cervical cancer in the Johns Hopkins Hospital on
October 4, 1951. On that same day, cells taken from her tissue before
began to play an important role in medical research; in fact, they began
tohavealifeoftheirown.Scientistsdiscoveredthatthesecells,soonto
be called HeLa cells, possessed an extraordinary vitality. Seemingly
(^95) Aside from cancer, studies have shown that ethnic and minority groups are
more exposed to environmental hazards than others, which also translates into
lower rates of longevity. Longitudinal research into this nexus has been
performedundertheauspicesof,amongothers,theKennedyKriegerInstitute.
(^96) As Karla Holloway has shown in herPrivate Bodies, Public Texts,"the
history of disease associations that connect social identity and biology" (83) is
indeed a dismal one for African Americans. A notorious case is the Tuskegee
Syphilis Study, conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service, also discussedby
Holloway(103-13,147-49;cf.alsoWashington157-86),duringwhichhundreds
of African American syphilitic men were left untreated so that scientists could
studytheevolvementofthedisease.