After over 70 years, the descendants of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from Virginia whose cervical cells were taken without her knowledge by Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors, have finally reached a settlement with biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
The family accused the company of profiting from a racist medical system and making billions of dollars from the HeLa cell line, which originated from Lacks' tumor cells. These cells were the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes and played a pivotal role in numerous scientific and medical breakthroughs, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines.
Despite the monumental impact of HeLa cells on modern medicine, the Lacks family had never been compensated for their use. The cells were taken in 1951 when it was legally permissible to do so without a patient's consent. However, the family's legal team argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific continued to profit from the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line were well-known, resulting in unjust enrichment. The settlement was achieved through closed-door negotiations held at the federal courthouse in Baltimore, with some of Lacks' grandchildren in attendance.
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