Henrietta Lacks' estate sues company over use of her cancer cells
CTV
The estate of Henrietta Lacks sued a biotechnology company on Monday, accusing it of selling cells that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took from the Black woman in 1951 without her knowledge or consent as part of 'a racially unjust medical system.'
The estate's federal lawsuit says Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, knowingly mass produced and sold tissue that was taken from Lacks by doctors at the hospital.
The HeLa cells taken from the woman's tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first human cells to be successfully cloned and have been reproduced infinitely ever since. They have used in countless scientific and medical innovations including the development of the polio vaccine and gene mapping.
Lacks' cells were harvested and developed long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for the family say the company has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known.
"Thermo Fisher Scientific has known that HeLa cells were stolen from Ms. Lacks and chose to use her body for profit anyway," the lawsuit says.
