The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Book Club at Scotch Plains Public Library

Join other community members in a discussion of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot on Tuesday, March 17 at 1pm.

Summary:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of. (For this summary and more, please visit www.rebeccaskloot.com.)

This program is free and open to all interested participants. Attendees are encouraged to register through the library’s website: http://www.scotlib.org or by phone (908) 322-5007 x204 or email library@scotlib.org.

The Scotch Plains Library is located at 1927 Bartle Avenue, one block from Park Avenue in the center of town.