Their federal lawsuit in Baltimore claimed Thermo Fisher Scientific has made billions from tissue taken without the Black womans consent from her cervical cancer tumor.
A poor tobacco farmer from southern Virginia, Lacks got married and moved with her husband to Turner Station, a historically Black community outside Baltimore. They were raising five children when doctors discovered a tumor in Lacks’ cervix and saved a sample of her cancer cells collected during a biopsy.
The remarkable science involved — and the impact on the Lacks family, some of whom had chronic illnesses and no health insurance — were documented in a bestselling book by Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which was published in 2010. Oprah Winfrey portrayed her daughter in an HBO movie about the story.
“The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history,” the complaint reads. In another supporting brief, Southern University law professor Deleso Alford highlighted the discrepancy in status and financial stability between Lacks’ descendants, including grandson Ron Lacks who wrote a book in 2020, and the medical professionals profiting off her cells.
In a statement posted online, Johns Hopkins Medicine officials said they reviewed all interactions with Lacks and her family after the publication of Skloot’s book. While acknowledging an ethical responsibility, the statement said the medical system “has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line.
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