henrietta lacks
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For the Henrietta Lacks Family, It’s a Matter of Who Gets to Tell Their Story
Who can tell your family’s story? That’s one of the key issues the book and now HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, raises. It’s one that Henrietta Lacks’ son Lawrence and his son, Ron, have been asking for some time now. Henrietta Lacks is the woman whose cells, named HeLa, were able to…
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Nothing Can Prepare You for How Powerful The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Is
Writers tell stories in hopes that not only are they read but they also come to life. This is what has happened to Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which chronicles the tragic tale of Lacks, a 31-year-old black woman from Clover, Va., whose terminal-cancer diagnosis and undying cells ended up changing…
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Wherever 2 or 3 Black Girls and Oprah Are Gathered Together, Magic Is in the Midst
Earlier this week, journalists were called to a swanky hotel in New York City to sit with the (majority-black) cast and director (George C. Wolfe) of HBO’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. We weren’t given many details—just where to be and at what time. With Oprah Winfrey leading the star-studded cast, we could only…
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HBO Launches the HeLa Multimedia Exhibit in Tribute to Henrietta Lacks, the ‘Mother of Modern Medicine’
Just in time for the highly anticipated debut of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, HBO has announced the launch of The HeLa Project, a multimedia exhibition inspired by the film. The Immortal Life, starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne and directed by George C. Wolfe, is based on Rebecca Skloot’s New York Times best-seller,…
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Family of Henrietta Lacks Seeks Compensation for Unauthorized Use of Her Cells
The story of Henrietta Lacks and her “immortal” cells is not quite over. Her eldest son, Lawrence Lacks, has come forth requesting compensation from Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University and possibly other institutions for the unauthorized use of the famous cells that prompted decades of medical advances. The Washington Post reports that Lawrence Lacks, who says…