Descendants of US woman Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were harvested without her permission and used to make millions of dollars, have reached a settlement with a biotech company they say profited from a racist medical system.Henrietta Lacks's tumour cells were the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishesMs Lacks's family had never been compensated
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 titled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which was published in 2010. Oprah Winfrey portrayed her daughter in an HBO movie about the story.
In a brief filed in support of the Lacks family, attorneys advocating for civil rights, women's rights and healthcare equity said the case was one of many in which US doctors and scientists had exploited minority patients. "Indeed, a great portion of early American medical research is founded upon non-consensual experimentation upon systemically oppressed people," the attorneys wrote.
In a statement posted online, Johns Hopkins Medicine officials said they reviewed all interactions with the Lacks 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".
The settlement came after closed-door negotiations that lasted all day inside the federal courthouse in Baltimore on Monday. Some of Lacks's grandchildren were among the family members who attended the talks.