Henrietta Lacks settlement hailed by experts as step toward correcting medicine’s racist history
Experts say the Henrietta Lacks settlement puts pressure on the medical establishment to acknowledge and correct the racism that underlies much of the field’s historical practices.
For what would have been Henrietta Lacks’s 103th birthday, her family got her some justice: A settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific over the Massachusetts-based company’s use of cells obtained without her consent seven decades ago.
The story of Lacks, a Black woman whose cells have contributed to scientific breakthroughs ranging from the development of polio and cancer treatments to the mapping of the human genome, is one of the best-known tales of the exploitation of marginalized groups in the name of medical progress.
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