WHO honours Henrietta Lacks, whose cells changed medicine
Al Jazeera
Cancer cells from Lacks, a Black woman, have provided breakthroughs from polio to HIV, but were taken without her knowledge or consent.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has honoured Henrietta Lacks, recognising the world-changing legacy of a Black woman whose cancer cells have provided the basis for life-changing medical breakthroughs but were taken without her knowledge or consent.
Researchers took tissues from Lacks’s body when she sought treatment for cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in the 1950s, establishing the so-called HeLa cells that became the first ‘immortal line’ of human cells to divide indefinitely in a laboratory.
In recognising Henrietta Lacks, the WHO said it wanted to address a “historic wrong”, noting the global scientific community once hid her ethnicity and her real story.
