My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 440 - Hands Behind Your Back

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the legacy of Henrietta Lacks. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. If you're interested in learning more about the story of Henrietta Lacks, check out this This Podcast Will Kill You episode: https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/2021/04/06/episode-70-henrietta-lacks-hela-there-everywhere/ Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. chat with an actor from the episode. Over the past few years, we've chatted with series icons like BD Wong, Kelly Giddish, Danny Pino, and guest stars like Padgett Brewster and Matthew Lillard. And just like an SVU marathon, you can jump in anywhere. Don't miss new episodes every Tuesday. Follow That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Dun-dun! ["My Saved River"]

My favorite murder. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's George, a hard start. That's Gary Gilgara. And we're just like professional newscasters where we're just right on. Yeah. No gaps. No talking over each other. No interrupting. Are we morning newscasters or are we like 60 minutes serious newscasters? Oh no no we have to be morning big coffee cup kind of slightly sexy in a way that's slightly

uncomfortable but it just gets you out to the commercial kind of slightly sexy in a way that's slightly uncomfortable, but it just gets you out to the commercial. Over caffeinated in a way that there's no way it's caffeine, like, but what? But it looks like, can I, where can I get that? Are you pitching our newest show? Like, it's called Mornings on Coke? Yeah, perfect. Perfect.

Mornings on Coke. Can I tell on myself to you through onto this podcast? Yeah, always. You know that I love to talk and I'm obsessed with tech talk. And we have to make sure they don't ban tech talk, because it's very important and people are very connected through it. Unfortunately, though, I'm 54. And so when I'm on tech talk, randomly, I'll be watching people's TikTok and then I'll

be touching my phone and I'll end up commenting on the TikTok. And every single time the comment is the three laughing so hard, the emoji is crying face. What? Is it a ghost? I think it's whatever is closest to my thumb on that side of the phone or something. But I've done it now multiple times. No. And it's something that maybe isn't funny or maybe isn't appropriate or it's just like a tarot reading where I'm like, ha ha ha. Hilarious.

It's so embarrassing. I waved hi to someone in their DMs. What? How? I don't know. I was like, I'm never not touching my phone. I fall asleep, whatever. Oh, okay.

I do right back. So sorry, I did not mean to do that. I'm just like, I'm loose on TikTok. That's some people's biggest nightmare and biggest fear. Like when someone, your friend hands you the phone to like show you a dude there and they're like, don't touch the phone. Yes. Like, okay.

Hands behind your back. For real. Oh my God. Or like Vince hands me his phone to order food and I just accidentally turn it off immediately and then order the wrong things. And you know. Patsy, you go to hell. I won't eat that.

I think if there were cell phones, like smartphones, when I was in my drinking 20s, I would have absolutely pressed like on as many things when I told people I wouldn't. Like if people were like, oh, I need to show you this guy. But I'd be like, no, no, I know. I get it. You'd be the wrong one. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, I liked it.

I liked, I liked. Well, I guess you're gonna have to live your life now that you liked that. Now that's your new path. It's like your ex's new girlfriend. You liked her post. I liked it. Well, I guess you're going to have to live your life now that you liked that. Now that you're a new cat. It's like your ex's new girlfriend. You liked her post. Let her know. From fucking six months ago. Stand behind it.

If you're going to look at her shit. In a bikini, congratulations. Congratulations. We can't all be in bikinis. Of course. Speaking of feeling old, I am like done with my youth because on the way here when I got in the car, I put on UV blocking driving gloves.

Gloves? Driving gloves because my hands are looking a little spotty and that's it. I'm done. I'm done. Good night. Goodbye. Do you have the wraparound glasses to wear like like a grandma that just got her eyes dilated?

No, because I have so much SPF on my face. I don't need it. But the hands though, you know what I mean? You had to go full glove. Because you wash them a lot or like you? No, because I don't want the sun when I'm driving. That's like to beat down on my hands and cause age spots. But you know, the face SPF can go on to the back of the hand.

Yeah, right. Yes, so I always have like washing my hands, it's always coming off and shit, so yes. Don't use my excuse. That was mine, I made up for you. The driving gloves is kind of next level, but it also, it just reminds me of like those old Jaguar commercials or whatever.

It looks like you're trying to flex. It does. And they got like, it's like fingerless too, so it's like. What's happening? Their fingers, I don't know why, I think they just do that because people are on their phone all the time and they know that, so I have these like fingerless gloves. So you have a tan line on your knuckles? Yeah.

The fingers don't matter. The fucking nails don't matter. The tops of her fingers are old, but oh my god. But her hands look ten years younger. Incredible. Oh, I have a little bit of news here. So I recently told you about how we accidentally went to Mozza, Ostria Mozza, which for the listener anywhere else besides Los Angeles,

Mozza is like the best kind of Italian restaurant. Everyone loves it. It's classic. Yeah. Nancy Silverton. Nancy Silverton. It's like the quintessential LA fancy ass, like, celebration dinner place. Yeah, exactly. So if you want to go there for your birthday, you kind of plan a month ahead.

Yeah, exactly. At least. But now you can get a delivery. That was like a big deal. The summer they started delivering the pizza, it was big. Oh my God. I'm too far. So anyway, I went to take my friend Chase Bernstein to dinner, and I thought I was making the reservation. I told you the story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the pizzeria. I was in the Osteria. Which is fancy. Which the time before we ate there, I saw Beyonce and Jay-Z eating there. Right. It's that kind of place. Right. Neither of us were ready. We

were both very nervous. And then at one point, the waiter came and said he loves this show. And so he wrote in, because I told the story because I could not remember his name, of course. And he just said, I'm the server from Osirio-Moza. If you ever need a table, please reach out. I got you. It was such an amazing experience meeting you, Karen. Love you both so much. Oh my god. His handle is Michael Says Hey, and he was so lovely. I mean all of the waitstaff were super lovely. I mean it's such a classy place. So now we got a we got a fucking hook. We got our hooks in. Hell yeah. We're gonna abuse that very nice offer. We're gonna get Michael fired. Let's get Michael fucking fired.

Let's get in there. Let's get in there in our fucking flip-flops and... Michael said we could have a table for 12. Michael said we could sit next to Beyonce and Jay-Z. We could sit at their table. You will pay forever doing us a favor. Thank you, Michael. We're the worst. Thank you, Michael.

I'm so glad that he wrote in to say that because he was super nice. It's fun to brag. It is. Anything else? Are you reading any books? No, but another old person thing is that I now go to record stores and only buy books instead of records. That's very specific.

That's my other old person thing. You're like, you leave the music to the children and you're like I'm gonna go over here. Oh let's see what old books they have about punk rock I can read instead of listening to the punk rock. You've already heard it. I'm reading about it. You need more details. Yeah I need to know the how's and the why's not just the what's. Yeah. All right should we get to this? I'm doing a solo episode tonight so so I got to read to you. Dude, when I realized today that it was your solo episode and I had no homework.

Oh, baby. I'm living large this week. All right, so here are some highlights from exactly right media, our podcasting network. Well, really, an important thing for this summer, we want to remind you that we have a World War II murder mystery podcast called The Butterfly King. We partnered up with a company called Blanchard House earlier this year. We love them.

They're the coolest. They did an incredible job on this podcast. And we think it's the perfect binge listen for your summer road trip. So if you haven't listened to The Butterfly King, please do. I don't want to sound like ageist, but I think your parents will really like it. If they get in the car with you and you guys are going to college or taking you to wherever, put this on and they'll be like, they'll give you money. It's like the thing I've talked about where the one thing my dad and I can always agree

on is talking about World War II. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Over on I Saw What You Did, Millie and Danielle are covering a classic reboot-based double feature. Oh, man. Red Dawn from 1984. Unbelievable.

And Red Dawn from 2012. Red Dawn from 1984 came on one night when I was sitting there with my dad. And my dad's riffing about what they were doing in that movie was some of the most delightful things I've ever experienced. Please get Jim a fucking movie riffing like video YouTube. I would. I mean we just have to trick him. Right. And then we just have to have a lot of time to edit because he really ruins things by his casual, did you say farting? Yeah.

No, I could not see that man farting. He's too dignified. He's so dignified, but then he just goes into like a guy from the 50s talk where like back then you called everybody by the country their parents were from. And so these, it's like the Portuguese or whatever, where it sounds offensive even if it's just the way he knows a person. Right. Where it's like they were from.

Yeah, like, dude, you can't do that anymore, dad. You just can't. And he actually has adjusted relatively well, but if he's telling a story, Yeah. it's over. Yeah, no. Okay, all right, well, I'm canceling that idea. Okay, great. Let's pre-cancel him so he doesn't get canceled. Exactly. Comedian Kenese Mobley joins Curt and Scotty on Bananas to talk about wacky news to distract

you from real life. Hey, and in the MFM store, your window of opportunity for hot dog t-shirts is closing. So be sure to go get those before they're gone. They feature artwork by listener Sammy Gorin, and that's myfavoritemurder.com. I think there's also my hot dog pins. Yeah. Oh yeah, you gotta get that hot dog merch. There's hot dog merch for the summer.

Like if it doesn't sell, we'll never make hot dog merch again. So like let us know you want more hot dog merch. It's all in your hands, listener. And don't forget to follow My Favorite Murder on TikTok, because there's a chance I'll give you three crying laughing faces. Don't touch your phone. Also follow us on Instagram so that you don't miss our weekend social media videos starring Sinkholes and Cookie and so much more. I love those. I love those. I love my videos. Is that terrible to say? Like they make me

really happy. No, it's so fun. And they've helped my sister because I have Cookie pick out my outfit, right? And my nephews saw it, my little nephews, and they now have their cat pick out their outfit in the morning, which takes three seconds as opposed to like 15 minute crying, what do you want to wear today thing? Oh, Leah's a master. I'm the best fucking aunt. I'm the master.

Oh, it's you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right. I got it. Okay. No, you're right. You're right. Well, I just love that idea where she's like, oh, do you want to do this? And that's like, solve. It's just another solve for her. And the cat's just like, oh, it blinked. It wants you to put on that shirt. Okay. That's fun for a kid. Yeah, they like it. Nice. It blinked or whatever. You get credit. You get credit for that too. Thank you. This podcast is brought to you in part by Squarespace. You know, we're in the dog days of summer.

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Goodbye. Well, I'm going to do a solo story, and this is exciting. This is really good to do this story solo. And thank you to Ali Elkin for thinking about this because I had a different story last week. It wouldn't have been a great standalone story. And she was like, let's fucking do this. And I'm like, are you sure?

You have to do so much more research. And she's like, I got you. Ali Elkin is Georgia's researcher. She's also consistently one of the funniest people on our staff meetings, our monthly staff meetings. There's a lot of stars. Yes. I'd say Ali is one of the funniest people on our staff meetings, our monthly staff meetings. There's a lot of stars. I'd say Allie is one of them. She's great.

So, I'm excited to share this and thank you to Allie for helping me. Today's story is about a woman who is now quite famous. But for about 60 years after her death, she was relatively unknown. This woman was instrumental in virtually every major advancement in medicine in the second half of the 20th century. What? Without ever even knowing it. Herself? Uh-huh.

This is the story of Henrietta Lacks. Oh. I know this story by her name and then the general kind of topic, but I do not know this story well enough. Okay, I cannot recommend the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksmore. It is so fucking incredible. It's so well written, it's so deep. It feels like fiction because it's so unbelievable, but it's real life. And it's by Rebecca Skloot.

And she, like the movie is about her doing the research too. So the movie's really great as well. But the information in the book is so amazing. It's one of those books, like I'm always getting rid of books and giving them away or putting them in, you know, donation, whatever. The ones I keep, I'm really strict about which ones I keep and it's because I wanna look smart

when someone comes over and looks at my bookshelf. That's a big reason, you know what I mean? So this book has survived like a decade of book purchase because it's so fucking good. And I also wanna, I mean, it's not just, yeah, I wanna look smart, but when I look at the bookshelf, I wanna go like, oh yeah, that was fucking incredible. Like the feeling that the book gave me when I read it,

I wanna see it on the bookshelf there. Absolutely, absolutely. My bookshelf, if I may, I had shelves put in during COVID and then at some point all my boxes with the books from my other house, because I just moved into my new house, they were all still in the garage and the water heater broke. And there was like a four inch flood or so and I didn't know it for a little while. And yeah, and then I just had to go down and it was like mold and everything where I'm just like book after. I had to throw away basically my history of books. It was rough.

That really breaks my, I feel that one because there is like this, this like feeling of looking over at your bookshelf and seeing all this beautiful writing that you wouldn't be the same person if you hadn't read it. And that would break my heart. I'm so sorry to hear that. I have to get a new Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont. I mean, here's the other thing. How many apartments have you moved from and lugged such heavy books? Absolutely. So like, I basically made it all the way to the finish line.

To the finish line, to the house that you're like, this is my forever house. And now I got to do this. Oh, God. The worst. All right. Well, we'll slowly and surely get you back up there. Let's build a backup. So, the story of the Lacks family brings up many, many ethical questions, both about the way they were treated by the medical and scientific establishment, and now with who should profit from their story, because it spawned this incredibly successful book and movie.

And almost every member of the Lacks family has been very supportive of both of those projects, but some aren't. The main sources I use in today's story is Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henry and the rest can be found in the show notes. Shout out to Reddit for explaining a lot of stuff about cells to me. It really is an incredible resource. Yeah, like for laypeople of me going, what? And then it's like, here's what. OK, thank you. Yeah. So on January 29, 1951, a 30-year-old woman

named Henrietta Lacks walks into an appointment with a gynecologist at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. There's a lump on her cervix, and she can feel it. And her regular doctor has referred her to this clinic, specialty clinic. The Hopkins doctor can tell right away that Henrietta does in fact have a tumor on her cervix. It's the size of a nickel. But he's baffled because she had given birth at the same hospital just four months prior and it seems impossible that someone would have missed such a large

tumor. And the only thing he can conclude, sadly, is that the tumor has grown at an incredibly rapid rate, so four months in, and it's that size. Right. Henrietta's black, and she had grown up on a tobacco farm in a town called Clover, which is in rural southern Virginia. Most of her ancestors were enslaved people, but the Lacks family eventually took hold of the tobacco plantation, and the Lacks family eventually took hold of the tobacco plantation and the Lacks family stayed in Clover planting tobacco for about another hundred years. As far as Henrietta goes, she is remembered by her family and by people who knew her as

a fun, loving, caring young woman. She's an excellent cook. She loves to go out dancing at local clubs. She's absolutely beloved and she's the shining star of her close network of friends and family. And there's like one photo of her and she's beaming and she's beautiful. Henrietta marries a man named David Lacks. He's her cousin and this isn't uncommon at the time. Rebecca Skloot presents this as a matter of factly and says that they were in love but there are certain dynamics in the relationship that through a modern lens is considered distressing.

David, the husband is about five years older and Henrietta is just 14 when they have their first child. Oh, wow. Yeah. A son named Lawrence. So four years later, she has a daughter named Elsie. Elsie has epilepsy, she's deaf and never learns how to communicate.

She's diagnosed with other developmental disabilities as well. And Henrietta takes painstaking, loving care of Elsie and all of her children. Next, she has a son named David Jr. who always goes by Sunny and a daughter named Debra and a son named Joseph who will eventually change his name to Zakaria, so we'll refer to him as that from now on.

Okay. And Henrietta is completely devoted to her children. They're her entire life. The family moves from Clover to Baltimore so that David can get a better job at a steel mill. And that's where they are when Henrietta has her last baby and begins to notice her symptoms. So after that initial round of testing, Henrietta's worst fears are confirmed. She has cervical cancer. She undergoes a round of radiation treatment. And while she's being operated on,

the doctor doing the operation takes a small sample of her tumor and gives it to a lab at Johns Hopkins. The researchers in the lab are trying to do what has previously been impossible. They are trying to grow human cells outside of the human body. So then I was like, what, why? Why did they think they could do that?

What made them want to do that? What does that mean? What's the value of that? Yeah, and so essentially what I found when I was doing my basic person, I'm not a scientist, research is- Reddit-based research. Yes, is that cells only live a certain amount of time.

They have a cap on how long they can live because they'll start to mutate if they live too long. And the cancer overrides that. And so they continue to grow and grow and grow. And the reason they thought this was possible, because this has never happened, they've never found cells that can reproduce like this before, but they had found them in like mice and other lab animals, so they knew it could be possible. So they've just been testing that for a while. Finally, here comes Henrietta Lacks. The lab at Hopkins is run by a married couple of researchers

named George and Margaret Guy. They, like other scientists, have been trying for years now to grow human cells in culture, and that just means outside the cell's natural environment. Henrietta's sample is one of many, probably thousands that have been given to the lab from Hopkins patients. And the tissue sample is given a label from the first two letters of Henrietta's first and last name. So it's HeLa. So HeLa cells, if you've ever heard that term before, which I totally had before I even

knew the story, because they're famous and that's where it comes from. All of the previous samples in the guy lab have died, maybe not immediately, but fairly quickly. You know, they can't survive outside the human body. So when Henry had a cells replicate and then keep on replicating, needing to be transferred to ever increasing numbers of test tubes, because they're just growing at this insane rate, like her tumor had.

Wow. It's a revelation. And immediately a world of possibilities for medical research is opened up. And then I looked into it, I'm like, why did her cells do that? And it's because it was cancer. Like her normal cells wouldn't have done that,

but this aggressive cancer that she happened to have, you know, were able to reproduce like that because of the genetic code that got shut off from the tumor. You know what I'm saying? I mean, not really, but that's okay. But no one else's cancer had ever done that before. This is the first time they'd seen it do that. Yeah, but they had tested. They'd never seen this before. Amazing. Yeah. So it's the first immortalized human cell line ever cultured. I wish I knew what that meant.

I wish I could explain it. I wish I knew the value of it. I wish I could explain to you better how rare it is and how insane it is that they found this and how important it has become to medical and science research. But I can't. You can. Just trust me. We'll see. Trust me. You have pages and pages to go.

I do. It'll be decades before scientists figure out why Henrietta's cells keep on dividing so easily when other people's don't. But even most other cancer cells don't seem to behave quite like hers. So hers are special and rare. George Guy, amazed by what Henrietta's cells are doing, gives the cells away to anybody who wants them, realizing what a huge scientific discovery this is.

He sends them to his fellow researchers. He also gives a vial to a man who starts a company called Microbiological Associates, which cultures more HeLa cells to sell for profit. So now this free thing that they had stolen from this woman, a company starts to make a profit off of them. And it does seem that no one at Johns Hopkins attempts to patent or profit off the cells directly though, but other people did. Right.

So, the cells are pretty much the biggest thing that has ever happened in modern medicine. Period. Two years after the samples are taken, a team of black female scientists use them to assist the famous virologist, Dr. Jonas Salk, with his research that leads to the polio vaccine. Yeah. Wow. So because they had so many cells to test on, and that's what's important about this,

is when they take your cells, they test them. Because your cells die, there's only so much testing that can be done with them, and so many leaps forward that they can take because they have a small amount of cells. But now that they have someone's cells who won't stop reproducing, they have an endless amount of cells to test on. So an endless amount of, oh god how can I say this? An endless amount of materials to go in and test other people for their diseases and things. Right, and to test the cures on those cells.

Oh got it, got it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, and to test the cures on those cells. Oh, got it, got it. You know what I mean? Yeah, so thank you. So they're also used to study genetics and cloning. They're used to develop vaccines and medicine. Eventually, they will demonstrate the link between HPV and the cervical cancer that ends up killing Henrietta. Wow.

And the majority of adults wind up exposed to HPV. It's pretty normal. And Henrietta's cells help create a life-saving vaccine that is standard for kids to get now. Right. I've seen their commercial. Yeah. But while all this is going on in the background, these medical leaps, the Lacks family basically knows nothing about it.

Henrietta dies from her cervical cancer eight months after she's first diagnosed. With all those kids and a baby. And by the time she dies, her cells are already revolutionizing medicine, but she doesn't know anything about it. After she dies, one of the researchers who had been excitedly working with her cells attends the autopsy, and it's only then for the first time that she's struck with the immense sadness of the fact that the cells that have been changing the course of her career came from a real live woman. You know, you have this Petri dish of cells. You don't think about a person.

This woman had never seen Henrietta before, only handled her tissue sample. And at the autopsy, she looks at Henrietta's feet and is struck by the fact that her toenails are painted red. She says, quote, when I saw those toenails, I nearly fainted. I thought, oh, geez, she's a real person. I started imagining her sitting in her bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that the cells we'd been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I'd never thought of it that way, end quote. Wow. Yeah, it's like you wouldn't if you're a scientist that's just looking into petri

dishes. You don't contextualize everything. You know, no one does. It's like you don't do that all the time. That must've been very, yeah, very striking. Yeah. Have you ever felt so insecure that you feel awkward about your pet watching you change because you think they're like judging you? If the answer is yes, then you might need to consider therapy. Therapy is a place to explore your thoughts, feelings, and behavior patterns. Simply sign up for Talkspace and you'll receive a personalized match with a therapist or a psychologist typically within 48 hours. Talkspace provides personalized treatment for individuals, couples, the LGBTQIA plus community, veterans, and teens. If you're nervous about therapy and you aren't sure what to expect, Talkspace is a great

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at checkout. That's a R T I C L E dot com slash murder to get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Goodbye. So what scientists are experiencing with these cells as a golden age of research, Henrietta's family is experiencing the seismic tragedy in their lives. Henrietta had been her children's protectors and in her absence, several of them suffer horrific abuse at the hands of other relatives. Also, before she died at the urging of doctors,

Henrietta had brought her eldest daughter, Elsie, to live in a psychiatric ward. While Henrietta's alive, she visits every single week and sees that Elsie is well cared for. But after Henrietta dies, Elsie is never visited again. I know. And I don't know why the father never went. It's just... Wow, that's... that is so heavy. It's very heavy and she dies a few years later at the age of 16 under horrible

conditions at the hospital. All of this is only uncovered in 2001. That's when Rebecca Skloot, the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Deborah Lacks, Elsie's younger sister, go looking for the records. So she didn't even know about that. Yeah. Lawrence, the eldest Lacks child, marries a woman named Bobette, and she swoops in and becomes this heroic, protective maternal figure for the younger kids, especially Deborah. Deborah had been sexually abused by a relative, and it's Bobbette who puts a stop to it once

and for all. So she swoops in and she's amazing. In 1971, George Guy, the scientist, dies of pancreatic cancer, and shortly after that, a tribute to him is printed in a medical journal called Obstetrics and Gynecology. It's the first time Henrietta's real name is ever used because before that, they had used a fake name. I think it was Helen Lake, so HeLa, just kind of to like not give the credit to anyone specifically and to make it shady and to not let anyone know that that's who actually gave those cells.

Yeah. Seems like it was done on purpose. Some say it was a mistake. and to make it shady and to not let anyone know that that's who actually gave those cells. Seems like it was done on purpose. Some say it was a mistake. So finally, the first time her name is used is in this article. And the article has the consequences of identifying the Lacks family to scientific researchers. So thousands of them have been working with these HeLa cells and many are working in the burgeoning field of DNA and genetics. So they're like, let's go. Now we know who this family is. Let's go find

them. Oh. It's only around this time, some 20 years and 100 scientific breakthroughs later that the laxes even learn that a sample was taken from Henrietta. They didn't even know that that had happened. One afternoon, a friend of the family who works as a medical researcher is visiting Bobbette. Here's the last name, Lax, and asks if they're related to Henrietta, and it's only in that moment that the Lax family learns that they have been famous in the field of medicine for decades.

And this piece of their mother still exists. Like, what a... What a just odd thing to realize is that a piece of their mother still exists. Like what a, what a just odd thing to realize is that a piece of your mother had been stolen and is now being used all over the world. Right, so soon after this scientist comes knocking on the lax's door. In 1973, they need to clean up a bit of a mess

that they've inadvertently caused with HeLa cells. So it turns out these HeLa cells are so prolific that they grow so well, they're so hardy, that they've contaminated many other samples in labs. They just won't stop producing. It's amazing. So it's actually messed up a lot of studies because they're so prolific. It's a costly error and it negates millions of dollars in research funding and costs millions of dollars to clean up. So one easier way to do that and to weed out the good data from the bad data is to

get the lax's blood sample and they can find the genetic markers and help identify what HeLa has actually taken over in those labs. But even then when they get the blood from the family, which they allow, they don't really explain themselves adequately to the family. Deborah is now in her early 20s when this happens, and she gets the impression from what they tell her that she's being tested for the cancer that killed her mother. So she's panicking, and she's like, am I going to get this cancer that, you know, it's just, it's really awful.

She lives with crippling anxiety for decades, and actually the doctors could have explained that they weren't testing for cancer, and actually the cancer that Henrietta died from isn't genetic. So they didn't even, you know, it's just, just the lack of any kind of care. Empathy. Any kind of empathy, yeah.

All of the secrecy and confusion couples with the fact that people are now publicizing Henrietta's tissue donation, which was in fact not a donation, but taken from her without her knowledge and without her family's knowledge. It shows a deep mistrust among the laxes of the medical establishment. And there's a lot of historic reason to be mistrustful. Black people have suffered at the hands of white people in the interest of science for centuries. Enslaves would sometimes tell stories of quote, night doctors,

who would come to catch people and do experiments on them. They said this to scare people into submission, but doctors really did perform these horrible medical experiments on enslaved people. And medical students from the 19th century often used the stolen corpses of black people for their studies. The idea of night doctors is, I've never heard of that before. That's horrifying. Awful. Awful. Later on, our country's very shameful legacy of unethical experimentation on black people continued with the Tuskegee syphilis study, which we've all heard of, when doctors withhold

life-saving treatment from a group of black men in order to study the long-term effects of the disease, which is a horrendous disease. The long-term effect is that the men die this slow, very painful death when they could have been easily treated. So they're testing the long-term effects of syphilis while they had a cure for it. So it're testing the long-term effects of syphilis while they had a cure for it.

So it wasn't like there was no cure, let's see what happens. It was- Just to see. Yeah, it's really fucking evil. That's truly evil. Yeah. This study was conducted by the United States Public Health Service and lasted for 50 years

from 1932 to 1973. Whoa. When it was uncovered by investigative reporting in the Associated Press. And at that point, it had been known for about 40 years that penicillin could treat syphilis. And the men in the study were never given any. That's like craven. It is. This is the most famous case, but there are plenty of other examples of the medical and scientific establishment treating black people as research subjects with no regard for their humanity.

The extent of the Tuskegee experiments had only just been uncovered when the Lax's found out what happened to their mother. So of course, they're so skeptical. So then in the 1980s, a book comes out about HeLa cells. It focuses on the science, not about Henrietta's life or who she was, the way Rebecca Skloot's book will when it comes out 30 years later. The book is mostly about the fallout that was caused in the scientific community by HeLa cells contaminating so many other studies, but it spends a chapter talking about Henrietta. The book's author is the

first person to access and publicize Henrietta's medical records. And you know, that sounds so shady, but it's actually not illegal for a journalist to do this. And in the early 80s, there was no federal privacy law for medical records. So whoever gave them to him might also not have been breaking any laws, but it just feels awful. It feels like another violation. The chapter talks about how tumors were

found everywhere inside Henrietta's body after she died and for the Lacks family and Deborah in particular, it's extremely traumatic to read this about her mother. Around this time, other people, white people, begin suing doctors for tissue samples taken without consent to differing levels of success. So it's in this environment that the writer Rebecca Skloot, who's played by pursuing doctors for tissue samples taken without consent to differing levels of success. So it's in this environment that the writer Rebecca Skloot, who's played by Rose Byrne in the movie and Deborah is played by Oprah, like come on, how amazing is that? Is this recent?

2017, I think it was. Yeah. And it's great. It really, really brings the book to life. So Rebecca Skloot comes into contact with the Lacks family in the 90s. She'd been researching Henrietta for years after becoming gripped with curiosity when a biology professor mentioned her during a class she was taking. She, like, went up afterwards to the teacher and was like,

what, who's this person tell me more? And they're like, there isn't anymore. So, she's just been trying to track stuff down. She was fascinated. And she wanted to know who the woman was, not just who this, what the scientific breakthrough was. And it takes the Lacks family years to agree to talk to Rebecca, who's white. And when Rebecca and Deborah, the daughter, first make contact, Deborah's in her 50s and all she wants to know is more about her mother and her sister Elsie, who had died young. She tells Rebecca that she's not looking to profit off her mother's contribution to science, but notes the irony in the fact that she herself,

the daughter of Henrietta Lacks, cannot afford adequate medical treatment. And there are family members who can't afford health insurance. Yep. I mean, that to me is the most egregious thing to point to, to be like, this is the problem. She says at one point, quote, I won't lie,

I would like some health insurance, so I don't got to pay all that money every month for drugs my mother's cells probably helped make. Yeah. So Deborah was only a toddler when Henrietta died, and she tragically only found out about her sister, Elsie, after her sister's death. When she finally agrees to talk to Rebecca, she says,

quote, you know what I really want? I want to know, what did my mother smell like? For all my life, I don't know anything, not even the common little things, like what color did she like? Did she like to dance? Did she breastfeed me? End quote.

So like, yeah, that's did she like to dance, did she breastfeed me, end quote. So like, yeah, that's what she wants to know. Rebecca winds up working on her book for close to 10 years, often with Deborah right alongside her. But Deborah and the other members of Lacks family do get scared multiple times throughout this research process that this is yet another white person who wants to take something from their family and make a profit.

Members of the Lacks' family were given advanced proofs of the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and they were actually able to make many edits. And they also became consultants on the film. Great. Good. Yeah. And around this time in the 1990s, some people began to treat Henrietta's contribution to science with the respect it deserves.

In 1996, a scientist named Ronald Petillo organizes the first HeLa Cancer Control Symposium at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. He petitions for October 11th, the day the conference is held, to be Henrietta Lacks Day in Atlanta. And the Lacks' family attend to great fanfare, which is nice. But about five years later, the Lacks' family is poised to be honored for a national ceremony in Washington, D.C., but the event is scheduled for about a week after 9-11, so it ends up not happening.

Yeah. Yeah. Shortly after, Deborah suffers a stroke and her health declines over the years. Deborah Lacks dies in May of 2009 when she's in her 60s, and it happened to be just months before The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is published, which is like as much about her as it is about Henrietta.

So it's sad. The book was on to be a best seller. It's been into a movie starring Oprah, as I said. Five members of the Lacks family consult on the film. And most of them are generally supportive of the way their story has now been told. That said, Lawrence, the eldest Lacks child, declined to participate and was critical of the way

his mother's legacy has continued to enrich white people and like, Jesus, can you fucking blame him? Right. He was the oldest living child of Henrietta at 88, and another suit is still pending. As for Henrietta's legacy, basically every person alive today owes their health to Henrietta Lacks. Studies using HeLa cells gave us the polio vaccine. They led to a revolutionary treatment for AIDS and cancer. They were even used to develop the COVID vaccine. They led to a revolutionary treatment for AIDS and cancer. They were

even used to develop the COVID vaccine. So there's really no way to quantify how many lives Henrietta has saved. In a passage at the end of Rebecca Scloot's book, Rebecca, Deborah, and the youngest of Henrietta's children, Zekaria, visit a lab to see Henrietta's cells under a microscope. Both the laxes are in their 50s at the time, and this is about 10 years before the book is eventually published and before Oprah comes knocking. The scientist hands Deborah a frozen vial full of her mother's living cells. Can you imagine? Deborah warms it between her hands and presses it to her lips and she whispers, quote, you're famous, just nobody knows it, end quote. And that is the story

of Henrietta Lacks, who is rightfully famous, and now we all know it. Wow. I know. I mean. That part of it of like, they were the kind of cells that enabled everybody else to get cures, to get, I mean, just thinking of that is so huge. And why wouldn't we all know that like from grammar school? Right. What's the, why wouldn't that be like celebrated in like this incredible thing?

Like what? It's like she's the first, you know, person on the moon and we know who that is. Why don't we know this? Because it was secret, because it was stolen. If she got to the moon with her own cells. Like that's the thing of it is like it felt like in the late 70s, early 80s, there was like a swath of cancer where all of a sudden people were whispering about cancer in the kitchen.

And every time it happened, there's a couple people, someone's mom would get cancer and would be dead within a year. And it was, it's just a horror. Children losing their mother. The idea that the medical establishment didn't think that it would be any kind of comfort or help or anything to communicate this kind of huge victory that she enabled them to have. Yeah and treat the family with the respect that they deserve. Yeah so definitely read that book, watch the movie and thank Henrietta Lacks for keeping you alive. Yeah.

Man, well, good one. Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad that was standalone. Thank you, Ally. That one, that was perfect. Should we end with what are you even doing right now? So we can end on a high note, and you guys tell us what you're even doing right now

while you listen to the podcast. OK, this is from Instagram. The name is Georgia Becht. What? That's the person's name. Hi. Hashtag what are you even doing right now? Right now I'm channeling my best inner trash raccoon persona whilst I dig through people's rubbish.

Oh. I'm an environmental waste consultant. And I listen to MFM as I go through landfill recycling and organic waste and then write reports for government bodies and councils on waste in their region and provide them with recommendations on how they can best reduce their waste. Wow. That's your career. That's amazing.

The next time I throw something away in public, I'm going to say I'm an environmental waste com- Okay. Trash reckon. Trash reckon. I'm honestly just waiting for the moment I get to find my own and it says, treasure. Or even a dead body.

I spoke to someone at a landfill site once and they told me they had found a whole human head. My coworkers think I'm real weird for that, but hey, someone's gotta do it. SSDGM. It's not your fault someone found a whole human head. No, and it's not your fault you were curious about it. It's not your fault you're a normal human being. No, and it's not your fault you were curious about it. It's not your fault you're a normal human being that pays attention to what's going

on around you. Right. I like this one. It's from Tina from Twitter. And Tina says, oh me? I'm working on building a miniature house in rural Japan. You know, the usual. A miniature house in rural Japan?

I mean. Take me there. Please. Well, you're there. That's what's exciting. You're there. Isn't that cool? Yeah, we're in their heads.

What are you even doing right now? Tell us. We want to know. We want to know what you do while you listen to this podcast. Yeah, please. And also, thank you for listening to this podcast. I mean, eight and a half years and running. What the hell?

We appreciate it so much. If you feel like giving us a review or rate or subscribe, it really helps in the background. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah, also, it helps if you just kind of clap your hands together real small and quiet. We feel it.

Yeah. We can feel that. It all helps. It does. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered Good bye! Elvis do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production our senior producer is Alejandra Keck our managing producers Hannah Kyle Creighton Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye!