The family of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit Monday against Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. for using her cells without her consent.
Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Cells were removed from her cervix in 1951 by the John Hopkins Hospital. Lacks’ cells have been used for groundbreaking scientific research for decades, but not only did Fisher Scientific Inc. use her cells without her consent, the company has also profited from her tissue sample and cell line.
A doctor at the hospital created the first human cell line, “HeLa cells,” to reproduce outside the body using her cells. The HeLa cells helped the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and more recently, the COVID-19 vaccines.
Lacks died later that year from cancer at the age of 31.
The lawsuit alleges that the company’s “ill-gotten gains rightfully belong to Ms. Lacks’ Estate,” and that it is “making a conscious choice to sell and mass produce the living tissue of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman, grandmother, and community leader, despite the corporation’s knowledge that Ms. Lacks’ tissue was taken from her without her consent by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a racially unjust medical system.”
“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?” family’ attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference yesterday.
The lawsuit says that the issue is much bigger than the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks.
“The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history,” the suit says. “Indeed, Black suffering has fueled innumerable medical progress and profit, without just compensation or recognition. Various studies, both documented and undocumented, have thrived off the dehumanization of Black people.”
