Talk:Henrietta Lacks

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Good article Henrietta Lacks has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Contents

[edit] older entries

Note to self (or anyone else having the time to incorporate it): the cell line is regarded as a new species, called Helacyton Gartleri. [1] [2] arj 15:51, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

If anyone does add this, be careful with the uppercase: it seems to be Helacyton gartleri, or at least that s what google has, and what s on the HeLa cell article. PaulDehaye 10:13, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's standard binomial name form: Genus species. --FOo 07:24, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Change devolution to evolution. There is no such thing as devolution. See: devolution

[edit] Helacyton gartleri

Helacyton gartleri is thought of by some an example of the creation of a new species. The cells were transformed by infection with HPV and are replicating without the hayflick limit of most eucaryotic animal cells. They have a different chromosome number from human cells, and are genetically stable, but still evolving. The same could be said for other immortal cell lines that are chromosomally stable, and no longer have the same number of chromosomes of humans. Another example may be the infectious cancer cells found in Tasmanian devil that can be transmitted through bites. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 21:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved as POV

There is controversy, however, concerning the use of her cells without her permission, particularly since she was an African-American woman, a historically disempowered group in the United States (especially during the 1950s).

[edit] GA Promotion, March 4 2007

I'm passing the GA nomination for this article because it meets all of the good article criteria (not to mention being extremely interesting!). I wish I had comments as to how to improve this article, but other than expansion I can't really think of anything, and that in itself may be difficult as when she was alive nobody appeared to know about her (well at least not enough to bother writing a biography). Anyway, good work :) Veesicle (Talk) (Contribs) 02:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of Birth?

The article says "August 18, 1920". The box below the picture says "October 20, 1911". --Robert Stevens 16:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of death?

Along the same lines of the previous post, has anyone else noticed that the approximate date of the picture is 1945-50, but her date of death is 1940? I'd fix it, but not sure what exactly to fix it to....Banpei 00:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Children?

Same lines again -the article says she had 5 children, but only four names are given in the box below the picture

I would also like to add that the article stats "Eliza died giving birth to her tenth child in 1924", but later on in the article is states that she only had 5 children and died from a medical condition which was believed to be cervical cancer (in stark contrast to the original claim of death by child-birth). So which is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.74.129.241 (talk) 21:26, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tumorigenesis is not (ever) an evolutionary process?

As of July 20, 2007, this article recites in part, “With near unanimity, evolutionary scientists and biologists hold that a chimeric human cell line is not a distinct species, and that tumorigenesis is not an evolutionary process.” However, I could not find support for this assertion in the cited reference. Moreover, the assertion of this sentence seems to be contradicted by the hypothesized origins of at least two transmissible cancers:

For this reason, I am rewriting this sentence to omit the assertion that tumorigenesis is not regarded as an evolutionary process. --Ryanaxp 21:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Neither of the specified theories calls anything an "evolutionary process". - Nunh-huh 02:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Nonetheless, the above-noted sentence still finds no support in its original form, either. Further to this, while I also agree that "evolutionary process" is a poor descriptor, still, it seems that at least some somatic tumors may have in fact given rise to the parasitic cancers, DFTD and CTVT—i.e., tumorigenesis did lead at least to "speciation," which falls within the realm of an "evolutionary process" (no original research, yadda yadda yadda, notwithstanding). --Ryanaxp 15:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
While the material on the above diseases might not have included the specific phrase "evolutionary process," I think it seems obvious that infectious agents like these are under the same evolutionary pressures as any other. I think if you can imagine rabies is subject to the pressures of natural selection, then these must be too. They aren't magically exempt because they came from malignant tumors.
However, if you need to see the exact words in your source, then I'd refer you to the source provided for the April 11, 2008 edit by 168.7.245.220. The section in the book is entitled "Cancer as a Microevolutionary process" (and includes the subsection "Tumor Progression Involves Successive Rounds of Mutation and Natural Selection"). And this is in Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et. al, one of the most widely used (and thus scientifically accepted) cell biology textbooks. Based on such definitive statements from such a reliable source, I'm removing the statement again.Qwerty0 (talk) 13:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that source has nothing to do with "Helacyton gartleri":it discusses cancer in general. If one uses it to "prove" that "Helacyton gartleri" is a species, one may also use it to "prove" that lung cancer is a species. In short, it doesn't say what the person who cited it thought it did. It simply makes the unremarkable claim that cancer cells compete. - Nunh-huh 23:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Biography?

This article no longer seems to be a biography but a tribute. The HeLa and Legacy sections now comprise the majority of this article's bulk which should not be the case: HeLa has its own article and the Legacy should be a quick summary of official or widely recognized honors. We do not really need to explain the reasoning for such honors because they are often verbose and, all too often, revisionist. In particular, to suggest that Lacks or her family made sacrifices or contributions to science is being nice but not honest and certainly not NPOV. What a biography is supposed to be is about the person's life. Another article with the same kinds of issues is the Terri Schiavo article: a "notable patient" whose importance was not recognized until after the onset of her brain damage. Maybe an RFC that includes those two and Rosalind Franklin would be good approach because Franklin also suffers from being a significant contributor to science who died too young, as compared to say, Marie Curie. An aid to achieving genuine NPOV is to state "just the facts" of what these people did and drain away the emotion that impels us to want make martyrs of them. We really need some guidelines about balance between NPOV fact and uniformity between these and other biographies.

The HeLa section does not have to establish the importance of HeLa, it should be restricted only to how it related to Lacks. Contrasting "mortality vs. immortality" is trite; it should only deal with how there was

  • No permission or knowledge, which was and is legal
  • How Lacks' name was released

In the current version, we are told about five time about how quickly the cells grow. That is repetitive: we only need to be told that it grew quickly in her and it grows quickly in the petri dish. How is the "(anthropomorphic) phrases increased in the narratives" a fact? It is just an insinuation of soft racism and sexism.--Tonycointoss 23:39, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It is important to remember that a biography is about a person. The HeLa cultures are not the person of Lacks, even if they eventually lead to clones of her. From the moment the tumor/samples are removed, they cease to be an important part of the biography.--75.37.14.196 (talk) 10:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Tag

Refers specifically to the sections "Early Life" and "Later Life." The paragraph structure is very confusing. Additionally, the part about John marrying a thirteen-year-old seems somewhat irrelevant. --aciel 20:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

This article needs to be greatly improved to meet current standards for GA. It needs to be copy-edited for prose. The references need to be in one consistent style. Some information, as noted above, is unnecessary. Please consider making these changes. I may help in the coming days, but I'd prefer to not be the only one working on it. Lara❤Love 15:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] African-American?

Is she an African-American? If so, I think it should be stated clearly in the article. sentausa (talk) 03:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think there was a wave of removing ethnic tags on people a while ago. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

But if it's not stated clearly, Hannah Landecker's discussions will be confusing. So, is she an African-American or not? I still don't know for sure. sentausa (talk) 03:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
She was black. She died in a segregated hospital ward for blacks. Like most American blacks, the question is more interesting than "black-or-white". See <http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3426> - Nunh-huh 03:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)