Review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key people, organizations, legal documents, and scientific concepts discussed in the review of 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'.

Henrietta Lacks

A young mother of five diagnosed with a virulent cervical cancer in 1951 whose tissue samples became the first immortal human cell line.

HeLa cells

A constantly reproducing, or immortal, line of cells derived from Henrietta Lacks that facilitated major medical developments like the polio vaccine and gene mapping.

Informed consent

The central canon of bioethics intended to empower patients and research participants by seeking their permission for procedures or research.

Nuremberg

The location where the fields of international human rights and American bioethics were born together out of the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

A United Nations document adopted on December 10, 1948, that set the agendas for the fields of human rights and bioethics.

Article 25

A specific part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including medical care.

Article 14 (Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights)

A 2005 United Nations provision stating the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental right of every human being.

Article 15 (Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights)

A 2005 United Nations provision stating that benefits resulting from scientific research and its applications should be shared with society as a whole.

Paul Farmer

Founder of Partners in Health and a champion for health as a human right who argues that medical services should not be treated as a commodity.

Jonathan Mann

A figure who spearheaded the first global strategy on HIV/AIDS and argued that the right to health is inextricably connected to the realization of other human rights.

Personal story vs. social story

A conceptual framework by Jonathan Mann stating that individual health is determined both by personal choices and a broader social context.

Meritocracy myth

The idea that the impact of merit on economic outcomes is vastly overestimated and that non-merit factors create significant barriers to individual mobility.

Epigenetics

The study of how environmental events, such as early life adversity, can reprogram genes and cause them to express themselves differently.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

An individual's or family's social and economic position, which research suggests can influence brain development and cognitive neural systems through epigenetic regulation.

Rebecca Skloot

The author of the 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which explores the intersections of HeLa cells, bioethics, and human rights.

George Gey

The scientist who first cultured HeLa cells and shared them at no charge with researchers around the world.