08/04/2023
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The family of Henrietta Lacks has reached a settlement with a biotechnology company that continually used her cells, according to the family's lawyer Ben Crump.
In 1951, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland collected cancer cells from Lacks, a Black woman, without her knowledge. They did so while Lacks was getting a biopsy, during which they discovered a tumor in her cervix.
Known as HeLa cells, they were the first human cells to be successfully cloned. Since then, HeLa cells have played a pivotal role in modern medicine, enabling numerous scientific breakthroughs, including the development of genetic mapping and the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.
However, the Lacks family never received any compensation as a result of the cells' use. The family's lawyers argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., a Massachusetts-based biotech firm, ‘continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known,’ according to the Associated Press.
‘It is outrageous that this company would think that they have intellectual rights property to their grandmother’s cells. Why is it they have intellectual rights to her cells and can benefit billions of dollars when her family, her flesh and blood, her Black children, get nothing?’ Crump said in October 2021.
The terms of the agreement are confidential, according to both Crump and representatives for Thermo Fisher. The settlement was announced on August 1, on what would have been Lacks’ 103rd birthday.
‘There couldn’t have been a more fitting day for her to have justice, for her family to have relief,’ said Lacks' grandson Alfred Lacks Carter Jr., via the AP.
