The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Essay ExampleLacks died of cancer but her cells bonk on.Henrietta Lackss story holds great importance because of the fact that there are several estimable subject areas that raises concern. The ethical issues raised in those times, exist even straightaway in some places however there are certain legal procedures and laws that lay down guideline for the ethics to be followed by researchers.The first ethical issue that comes to my mind is that of confidentiality. The ethical issue of confidentiality in research means that the identity, privacy and all information about the patient must be hardened as highly confidential in nature. The identity of people being used for a particular research or study should never be revealed. It is the researchers responsibility to protect the identity. However, in Lacks case, confidentiality was not maintained. The researchers did not reveal only her name but also revealed her hotfoot to the world. In those t imes, there were no binding laws that called for confidentiality on part of the researchers.Today, it is mandatory for researchers using human tissues to respect the privacy of the subjects and safeguard their identity. One of the most familiar to keep things confidential is the use of pseudonymisation or use a code in place of real identification of the human subjects (Kalra et al, 2006)The next ethical issue worth that I would like to discuss is that of informed consent. Human tissues and cells are of great importance to the research world however these tissues and cells need to be procured from people with appropriate consent. People have the right to know how their cells are being used for research. In Henriettas case, she was not informed about her compensates decision of tumorous cell extraction. She was not even asked for consent. In the 1950s, issues about informed consent was still in infancy stages, so Dr.Gey was not compelled in any way to ask Henrietta Lackss consent f or