Life After Death: Henrietta Lacks

0:15 Oh, hey there. Oh, hey there. Wow, that's some energy. Yeah. I was not expecting it. Bam. We are the History Buffoons. I'm Kate. I'm Bradley. And this is the History Buffoons. Like I just fucking said. How are you? I am well. How are you? I'm doing well. Excellent. What do you got for us today? Um, we are gonna talk about Henrietta Lax. Lax, like L-A-X. L-A-C-K-S. And her cells. Like prison cells? Nope. Like body cells. Oh. I know. Interesting. All right. I know. Um before we get to our drinks, if you guys like what you hear, please like, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff.

1:03 Also, if you go to our website, History Buffoons Podcast, and uh feel so inclined to help support the show. We have a link up top. You can help uh donate just minimal amounts just to help us to keep doing research and equipment and all that stuff. We greatly appreciate each and every one of our followers and anyone new to uh our uh our show. So what he said. I reiterate what he said, ditto. Anyways, okay, so we picked up some three sheeps, which we have had on the podcast before. I don't remember um I don't remember if I've had this on the podcast. I oh dear, I might have, but I know you've had fresh coast before.

1:47 Yes, and I like fresh coast. You do. But this is a Sheboygan, Wisconsin um beer, and it was probably one of the first beers. Nope, probably one of the first um breweries that Nathan and I have gone to when we first moved here. Yep, and so I have Chaos Pattern, it's uh hazy IPA. I also have because we bought a variety pack just to kind of accommodate both. So it comes with a rotating one. I've got bad boy. That was the rotating one, yeah. Black wheat ale, which I'm not oh interesting, yeah. So I'm kind of curious. Um is there was there three each? Yes. Okay, so maybe I'll try one. Yeah.

2:28 Um black wheat, though. I'm just I'm curious because I've had like a black IPA. I've never had anything other than that, though. Do you think they burned the wheat? Oh my god. Open your fucking beard. Jesus. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's still good. So same. Same. It's so good. Well, and it's funny because you're not usually uh pale ale, and this is two weeks back at the back. You've had pale ale's as your uh podcast beer, so we're getting you there. This is the way. Don't worry about okay. All right, so let's talk about who what's her name again?

3:08 It's Miss Henrietta Lax. Henrietta Lax. Yeah. L A C K S. Yeah, she was born in 1920. Oh dear. In Roanoke, Virginia. Hey. But she spent most of her childhood in a small farming community in Clover, Virginia. Okay, and life there revolved around tobacco farming. Sure. And uh families who worked long days planting and tending and harvesting just to keep that economy alive, right? Right, right, right, right. So Henry Henrietta grew up in where in a world where everybody worked all the time. Okay. Children helped in fields, neighbors de Yes. I work all the time. I know. You work all the time. I do. I think we still live in that world.

3:49 I know. Anyways. How did that happen? Well, you know, we can get into it, but that's for another show. Economy. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. That's okay. Um, so sh children helped in the fields, neighbors depending on each other, and most families lived s uh simple lives, which was tied closely to their land. Well, yeah, especially back in the twenties. I mean, it's not like they could hey Ma, I'm gonna hop on the interwebs and look up some porn. I mean, or whatever they would look up, I guess. So they had a lot less. I looked up the spice girls when I was younger. Yeah, that was me. Why? Because I wasn't supposed to, so I did.

4:30 Oh, scandalous. Yeah. I remember on our senior trip to Canada, we went to Toronto for a jazz band thing. And um, or no, it wasn't just jazz band, it was the whole band. Whole band. And um my old buddy Garrett bought a poster of what's her name? Jerry Hollowell. Oh ginger spice. Ginger in a scantily clad outfit on poster. But yeah, I remember he bought that up in Canada. She's so pretty. Oh, she still is. Oh my gosh. Like she's got like minimal makeup and stuff, and her hair's more natural and everything. Oh, she's so pretty. No, she is a very pretty person. And she was very to a well, I think he was he's a year younger than me.

5:12 17. I was 18 at the time, even to a 17 and 8-year-old, she was quite fetching. Which is why she was called sexy spice. Or ginger. No, she was sexy spice. No, she was ginger spice. Are you sure? Look it the fuck up. Come on now. I grew up with the spice girl. You literally looked the spice girls up online. There isn't a sexy spice. Are you sure? There's sporty spice, baby spice, ginger spice, um, scary spice, and then one other spice. Posh. Posh Jerry, babe, shit. It's ginger spice.

5:52 I told you. Where did I come up with sexy spice? Because she's sexy. She is, I guess. My apologies. Yeah, you should. You should be apologizing for her. Apologies, Miss Jerry Hallowell. That that's her name, right? Jerry Hallowell. Yeah. Right. Okay. Anyway. We got sidetracked by the Spice Girls. Look at us go. Anyways. We're gonna flip the switch here. Yeah. Um, Henrietta's mother died when Henrietta was still a young child, and um her family ended up moving. Um, there was like, I don't know, five, ten of them. I don't know. There was a bunch of kids. Quite a range. Let's just say seven, call it call it uneven.

6:32 But the family was then separated in between other family members because the father was like, This is a lot. You can't do it. So hey, Uncle uh, whatever. And I don't and it wasn't anything bad, it's just what had to be at the time. No, it's just that's how they made it work. Yeah, and that's understandable. Exactly. So Henrietta ended up living with her grandfather in a small cabin that had once been used as slave quarters on the very same land where generations before had been forced to work. Sure. So it was here that Henrietta grew up alongside her cousin, uh David, or Day, they called him Day as in D A Y, um, Lax.

7:13 Okay. Over their time, the two cousins became close. More than cousins. Oh, but they were were they first cousins? Uh, you know, I don't know. Or were they second cousins twice removed? Or what we're gonna say they're first cousins. I grew up going up north to my aunt and uncles a lot. There is a certain man and woman that I know in my life who's related somehow to the family. They're first cousins. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a thing. They married. Yep. Yep. Married. Um, you should hear my cousin do his laugh.

7:55 It's fucking hilarious. He's got such a weird laugh, and she she does it perfectly. At least used to. I don't I'm sure she still does, but anyways. So Henrietta and Day fell in love and they started a family together. They had two kids, and then they got married. Oh, scandalous for that time for me. Yeah, yeah. Um, but by the time that Henrietta reached adulthood, she and Day had a couple more children. I think she had five in total. Oh, wow. Life wasn't easy, but it was stable. Okay. I'm so sorry, keep her, but it's all the mirror. It's all right. The fields provided work, the community was close-knit, and rural Virginia had a steady predictability to them, which a lot of people really liked.

8:36 Sure. And during the 1940s, opportunity opportunities pulled many families north. There were steel mills around Baltimore that were hiring. And the jobs were promised as more of a reliable income over farming. Yeah. And like many others looking for better prospects, Henrietta and Day packed up their family and moved to Maryland. Oh, okay. And they settled in a town called uh Turner's Station, just outside of Baltimore. All right. Now, Turner Station was a place where many black families found work connected to the steel industry. The houses were modest, but the streets were busy with ch children playing outside and neighbors looking out for one another.

9:20 And Henrietta quickly became known for her warmth and her lively personality. All right. Friends remembered her as someone who loved to laugh, someone who enjoyed dancing, dressing well, and spending time with her family. Okay. By early 1951, something began to feel wrong. Uh-oh. Henrietta started experiencing unusual bleeding and pain in her abdomen. Oh boy. At first, she tried to ignore it. Um, doctor visits were expensive. Sure. Life had a way of put pushing prof uh personal health concerns to the bottom of the priority list. I need to say it. I still do that today. I was just gonna say there's nothing, nothing different in today's world because freaking anything is so expensive.

10:06 And it's insurance, co-pays, out of pocket, well on this thing, network, out of network. Like you have you pay insurance every fucking paycheck, but yet you still gotta pay it out of your ass for these companies. And like I'm ever since my dad passed away, I am not a fan of health insurance. Yeah. Um and then you have to give buy prescriptions and yeah, just one if you're in a hospital state, don't ask for ibuprofen, it's gonna cost you 300 fucking dollars. Yeah. And you could go to the store and buy a whole bottle for nine bucks or whatever the fuck it is. Yeah. Anyways, let's give us that. She pushed her pain aside, but that it never went away. So eventually Henrietta decided she did need medical help.

10:46 Sure. She made the trip to Baltimore and walked into the gynecology clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Yeah. At the time, Hopkins was one of the few hospitals in the region that would treat black people. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's wild. This was a very important place for many families. So during the examination, the doctor found something. Uh oh. Inside Henrietta's uh cervix was a tumor unlike anything he'd seen before. It was hard, it was purple, it bled easily when touched, and a small sample of the tumor was taken for testing, like marble size, I believe. Okay.

11:27 So this small piece of tissue taken from Henry Henrietta's tumor did not go directly into a microscope slide or a pathology report or the bin, whatever. It's a bin. Instead, part of it was sent down the hall to a research laboratory run by a cell biologist named George Otto Gay, G-E-Y. Gay has spent years chasing a this one scientific goal, and that was to grow human cells outside the body. Okay. Scientists could grow some animal cells in culture dishes, but human cells were rather stubborn. They divided a few times and then they died.

12:09 And every experiment hit the same wall. Okay. So cells simply refused to survive long in an artificial environment in a laboratory. Yeah. But if research could research just if researchers could grow living human cells reliably, it could change everything. They could test medicine, study diseases, experiments without having to rely on human subjects. So Gay and his team tried again and again. And whenever a patient came through the hospital with surgery or a biopsy, small samples of tissues might would be sent to this research lab.

12:51 Okay. And most of those samples died fairly quickly, but Henrietta's did not survive. They survived. So when the sample of her tumor arrived at the lab, technicians placed the cells in a glass culture with a nutrient mixture designed to help them grow. Okay. And they waited. And at first everything seemed usual. Um both but soon it's like it would multiply a couple times, which is generally the same as regular human cells. Yeah. But soon they noticed that the cells just kept dividing and kept dividing and kept dividing. And day after day, instead of slowing down like the other human cells that they're used to, these ones multiplied rapidly.

13:36 They grew. Yeah, go ahead. Is this attributed to Henrietta herself or what the tumor was? I think it was both. Okay. Yes. Um, so one, it is cancer cells, and cancer cells um they like to spread fast. They spread fast and unevenly. Yeah. Um, but there was also it could have been a number of factors, and I actually um looked this up because um it was really confusing to me as to why hers were so different than everybody else's, but it was potentially in regards to a bunch of other things. Wow, okay. Um, so her cells were cancerous, so they divided rapidly, um, and they would ignore like the normal, normal growth limits.

14:23 Um, they wouldn't stop dividing if there was crowding of the cell. Um, her tumor was extremely aggressive. Um, and she also had HPV. Yeah, what is that again? I've definitely heard of it. I know. HPV is human papillomavirus. Um, she specifically it's warts. Oh. You can get genital warts, you can get foot warts. Yeah. Um, I think hers were more genital warts, but they could not figure out where they came from, and they actually didn't know it was HPV at this time. At that time, sure. Okay. Um, but she had HPV 18, which is one of the most aggressive causing um cancer-causing strains.

15:05 Oh, Jesus. And then um her cells also produced something called uh telomerase, telomerase, um I'm reading this. So Henrietta cells produced high amounts of this telemerase, which is an enzyme that rebuilds chromosomal ends. Oh. So because this telomerase develops quicker and more, yeah, this allowed the cells to avoid the normal biological aging process when the ends of their chromosomes would eventually wear down.

15:48 Hers never worn down. That's crazy. Okay. And then there also has to be like perfect lab conditions. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yes. So like all of these things boosted that reproduction. All right. I feel so smart. I read it all. I know. I was I was I was gonna say something, but I was just gonna try and let it go, but no, no. So day after day, instead of slowing down like other human cells, these multiplied rapidly. Okay. They grew thick in the culture dish, forming layers upon layers of living cells. It was something the lap had never seen before, um, as most human cells would die after about 50 divisions.

16:31 Right. So it's like biologically built into our DNA to die. So scientists didn't fully understand it yet, but every experiment seemed to confirm it. Henrietta's cells ignored these rules completely. They continued um dividing without stopping. That's wild. And Gay realized almost immediately what this meant. For the first time, scientists might have access to a stable, self-replicating human cell line. Cells that could grow indefinitely in the lab. Right. So to label the culture, the lab followed a simple naming system using the first letters letters of the patient's first name and last name.

17:14 So short for Henrietta Lax, it's Gila. Okay. So Gila cells would soon become soon become very, very famous. Oh. So at the time, Henrietta herself has no idea that this is happening. Of course. She was focused on something much more immediate like fighting her own cancer. Yeah. Doctors began treating her with radium therapy. Oh no. One of the primary cancer treatments available at the time. Did her draw fall off? No. Thank God. I know. If you know, you know. Small glass tubes containing radioactive material were inserted near the tumor in an attempt to destroy the cancerous cells.

17:56 Wow. The treatments were really painful and really exhausting. Yep. Meanwhile, back in Gay's laboratory, Henrietta cells continued doing something no other cells have done before. They thrived. Don't tell me like another Henrietta just started walking out of the lab. Wouldn't that be so spectacular? And fucking creepy. It's true. Just saying. The cells multiplied so quickly that soon there were more than there were more than the small lab could reasonably use. Okay. So tubes filled with Gila cells began accumulating in incubators and refrigerators, and Gay realized the discovery was too important to keep to himself.

18:40 That is different. What is it? It's that black wheat ale. Mm-hmm. Ooh, it's a it's a dark, dark beer. Is it? Yeah. We should give one to Nathan. Oh, you like it up? Maybe. I don't know. Could I know he's more into stouts and porters, but not ales as much, but interesting. Yeah. So uh Gay realized that it it was too important to keep to himself. So if these cells could survive shipments, scientists around the world could use them for research. Right. So the lab began packing small vials of Gila cells and mailing them to researchers across the country. And did they survive?

19:21 They did. Crazy. Um, Henrietta Lax, though, um, was still lying in the hospital fighting for her life. The cancer was extremely um aggressive. Yeah. Despite treatment, the disease spread rapidly through her body. Tumors appeared in multiple organs, and the pain became incredibly severe. Sad. And by August of 1951, Henrietta was hospitalized as doctors struggled to manage her symptoms. That's sad. And of course, within the walls of the hospital, her family like watched as this illness took its toll on her. Of course. Her children were still young, and her husband Day stayed uh Day stayed close by as doctors tried everything they could to help her.

20:04 Yeah, so she would have been 31 at this time. October 4th, 1951. She died at 31 years old. God damn. That's sad. Yeah. That's that's too young. But of course, her tumor cells that were taken did not die. They were still alive. Isn't that almost kind of like a slap in Henrietta's face? It's like, you motherfuckers. Yeah. You die, I stay alive. It's like, what the fuck? I got kids, man. I'm 31. You're just a cell. You're just a cell. No, I I felt bad. Um you just have a powerhouse called the nucleus.

20:45 Anywho's, I I felt bad. There's there's this one guy that I talked to at one of my accounts, my last account today. And I always say hi to him, and sometimes I'll give him something extra or whatever I have or whatever might be. And and uh uh I was chatting with him today, and his uncle is on his way out through because of cancer, unfortunately. Um he had cancer behind his eye, and then apparently, and I'm gonna get everything most of this wrong, but it like spread, something happened in his brain and went down his spinal. Oh my gosh. Spinal cord or whatever. It went down through his his yeah, spinal cord.

21:27 So um he was telling me how like and the the reason why I bring it up, I'm not I don't want to like share other people's personal stories like this, but the reason why I bring it up though is because he was like Monday he was walking around. Yesterday they're telling us I'm telling him goodbye. It's like Jesus Christ, man. It's so fucking aggressive most times, and like Henrietta's, you know, that just took her pretty quickly, really. Yeah. A little bit, but it's just we have we have what is it? The cancer Society or blah blah blah, whatever thing, which how how have we not come across like any way to fix a lot of these?

22:08 I don't know. Billions of dollars. No. Just keep keep giving us money. Because you know they are like searching around the clock. Hey. Alright, let's move on. So doctors recorded the cause of death as cervical cancer. Okay. Um, an unusually aggressive form that had spread rapidly throughout her body. Sad. Her family buried her in an unmarked grave in the rural tobacco fields of Clover, Virginia, which is where she grew up. But it there is her, I think it was. Hmm. I think she was buried next to her mother.

22:49 How would they know? Was she unmarked too? No. Her her mother has a headstone. Why would she be in an unmarked grave? I'm not sure. Maybe it was a money thing. I mean, sure, I get that, but but she is like super close to where her mother died. And I I believe that's true, and I can look it up here in a bit. That's with something else in the reference, but I mean, still, 31. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. That's terrible. So for the Lax family, life moved forward the way it has to. Nope. Unfortunately. There were children to raise, bills to pay, and long days of work ahead. Yep. Um, in laboratories across the United States, Henrietta cells were still alive.

23:29 So she's still alive to a degree. Inside incubators and glass culture tubes, the Gila cell line continued dividing. Scientists quickly realized that these cells were not just youth uh useful, they were revolutionary. How so? Requests for Gila cells began arriving faster than the original lab could handle. Right. Um, researchers studying viruses wanted them, cancer specialists wanted them, geneticists wanted them. Oh, yeah. And so her cells became traveling cells. They were packed in small glass vials surrounded by dry ice and shipped across the country. They were arriving in laboratories in Europe and Asia and South America, and within just a few years, HELA cells had become one of the most widely used tools in biomedical research ever.

24:21 That's fucking wild. Entire laboratories were now growing cultures descended from a woman most of them had never heard of. Of course. By the mid-1950s, demand for HELA cells had grown so large that specialized production facilities began growing them by the billions. That's so I'm sure you'll probably get to this. Are they still around today? Yes. That's fucking wild. So for the first time in history, living human cells were being manufactured like a product. Yeah. Researchers used them to study cancer cells under radiation exposure during the early years of the Cold War. They used them to investigate how viruses infected human tissue.

25:03 They helped scientists understand how cells divide, how they mutate, and how diseases spread through the body. Crazy. Some of Henrietta's cells were even placed aboard early research rockets and satellites to observe how human cells behaved in space. That's fucking Henrietta made it to space. She did. Look at her go. But the breakthrough that first captured global attention involved polio. Okay. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, polio outbreaks struck communities and with frightening speed. Children who had been healthy one week were suddenly would suddenly lose the ability to walk the next.

25:47 Is this how we cured polio? Hospitals filled with rows of iron lungs helping patients breathe. Scientists were racing to develop a vaccine, but test but testing one safely required enormous quantities of human cells until they reached GELA cells. Yeah. Because the cells grew so rapidly, research could grow the poliovirus inside them and test whether experimental vaccines stopped the infection. If it didn't work, they'd get more cells. Right. So when the vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was ready for large-scale testing in 1954, laboratories relied heavily on HELA cells to evaluate the results.

26:32 That's crazy. Within a few years, the polio vaccine helped bring one of the most feared diseases of the century under control. What did what did polio do again? What was its symptoms and like what did it make you do? So it was basically people would end up in wheelchairs like they can't walk with polio. And I'm sorry, I'm I don't know much more than that. That's okay. I was I wasn't sure if you did know, but because wasn't it was it FDR who had polio? He was in a wheelchair, and nobody knew it because they didn't have TV at the time or something, like it was only radio. Isn't that the reason they put the front on the desk of the president of stuff or whatever?

27:12 Something like that. Yeah. Um, if that sounds right, I I'm um don't quote me, but that sounds right. Um, it's I was just curious because I I guess I never really knew. So few people realize that behind the scientific milestone to stood millions of cells taken from a woman named Henrietta Lax. Yeah. And the discoveries were only just beginning. Gela cells so uh soon helped researchers develop early chemotherapy drugs. Crazy. They were used to study the effects of radiation and toxic chemicals on human tissue. Excuse me, scientists use them to map chromosomes, investigate viral infections, and understand the basics of cell division.

27:55 And over time, Henrietta cell cells would contribute to researching diseases such as leukemia, influenza, and HIV and AIDS. Jesus. So decade after dec decade, her cells kept dividing. By some estimates, if every Gila cell ever grown were placed together, their total mass would weigh tens of millions of kilograms. How many pounds is that? 22 million. Oh my god. 22 million pounds. That is the equivalent of 25 Boeing 747s.

28:41 For some reason, and I'm drawing a blank on the movie. That's a huge bitch. Just comes through my brain. And I don't mean to call Henrietta that, but that's a lot of cells. That's a lot of cells. That's a lot of Henrietta. That's a lot. Look at her go. I know. And go and grow. And all of this was taken from a marble-sized biopsy. The fact that, you know, yay big. And it's still around today. That's fucking insane. Yeah. I mean.

29:22 Wow. I mean, Henrietta's been to fucking space. Yeah, she has. That's crazy. So through all of this scientific progress, there was still something unusual happening. The woman whose cells made these breakthroughs possible had disappeared from the narrative. No one knew where these heedless cells came from. Well, I mean, over time. Yes. They just they call them healless cells. They don't. Henrietta lacks cells. Yeah, they don't they don't make the connection. You know, people are forgotten, even on something this revolutionary. Well, her family also had no idea that her cells were being used.

30:05 Oh shit. So by the early 1970s, more than 20 years had passed since Henrietta Lex died in the hospital. Yeah. During those two decades, Tila cells had become one of the most widely used tools in biomedical research. Laboratories around the world depended on them. Scientists had published thousands of studies using them. And um they found something a little bit troubling by the late 1960s. Experiments that were supposed to involve different types of human cells were producing identical results. At first, scientists assumed that it was coincidence.

30:46 Then a geneticist named Stanley Gartler took a closer look and analyzed several widely used human cell lines and discovered many of them were genetically identical. Okay. Even though that they were labeled as completely different cell cultures, they all carried the same distinct markers. Interesting. They were all Gila cells. Okay. GELA cells grew so rapidly that even if a tiny number entered another culture dish, it would take over. It would take over the other cells. Wow. Without realizing it, scientists around the world accidentally contaminated their experiments.

31:32 Yeah. So some studies that were supposed to be using normal human tissue were actually studying Gila cells instead. Okay. So this was a major problem problem for the scientific community. For sure. Researchers then needed a way to reliably identify which ones were Gila cells and which ones were other cells. Did they dime a different color? But yes. However, they needed to know which ones were which first. Well, of course. So they needed genetic information from Henrietta Lax. So they needed uh don't tell me they exhumed her. No. They got from her first cousin?

32:12 They went to her family. Oh dear. They needed to find her family. So in 1973, more than 20 years after Henrietta's death, researchers contacted members of the Lax family and asked if they would be willing to provide blood samples. To the scientists making the request, it was a routine research question. Yeah. But to the family receiving the call. They're like, wait, what? For decades they had believed that Henrietta's story ended at the hospital, and now they were hearing like, wait, her cells are alive, living in laboratories, growing by the millions, being using experiments. What? Some family members even struggled to understand what the researchers meant.

32:54 That the idea that part of their mother could still exist decades after her death sounded impossible to them. Right, of course. Yes. Others worried actually that doctors were somehow still experimenting on her. So like they kept her in like a secret lab. Yeah, like they were starting to jump to conclusions. Like, what is actually happening here? Because it was just not understood by the lay person. Well, sure. So adding to the confusion was the fact that many researchers still refer to the cells as Gila. Like they're talking to the family as we need Gila cells. Okay, no, we need your mother's cells, whatever.

33:36 So the information to the family arrived in fragments. They were using scientific terms that they've never heard of before. Um, phone calls from researchers asking questions and re requests for blood samples without any like explanation. Yeah. Slowly, it just didn't match quickly, right? Yeah. And another realization started to emerge. Henrietta cells had become so extremely valuable to science, yeah, but no one had ever asked permission to take them. Right. And no one ever told the family they existed. I feel like a lawsuit's coming on.

34:17 So as the Lex family slowly beginning learning about Gila cells in the 1970s, yeah, another question emerged. One that scientists, lawyers, and ethics ethicists, ethicists, people who study ethics, yes, would eventually debate for decades who owned these cells. Well, it's funny because a lot of scientists would be like, well, we do. It was given to us through the labs. Like, no, no, no. Yeah. They were just given to you. You never properly received them, we'll say. I don't know. So many people assume the answer would be simple. If the cell cells came from Henrietta Lex, then surely they belonged to her or to her family.

35:00 Right. But medicine had long operated under a different assumption. Of course they did. When doctors remove tissue during treatment, patients don't retain possession of it afterward. No. But think of like an ordinary tooth extraction. When a dentist removes a molar, the patient typically doesn't take it home as personal property. Instead, it's treated as personal waste. How do you get it from the tooth fairy then? I know my friend Sam, she has recently had a tooth pulled and she got to take it home. But and did she put it under her pillow? I don't think so. In any case, I wouldn't, you know, whatever. I wouldn't suggest it. No.

35:40 But most of the time it's treated as medical waste. And so the same principle applies to tissues removed during surgery or a biopsy. But it wasn't waste. Once the sample leaves the body, it's normally sent to a laboratory or a pathology department for examination. Yeah. After that, it may be stored, discarded, or used for research. And for most of the 20th century, this process happened routinely without much discussion. But one issue that had not been addressed when the sample was first taken in 1951 was informed consent. Correct. So today, patients are asked to sign forms explaining how their medical information and biological samples might be used.

36:27 Right. Hospitals and researchers are expected to explain the purpose of procedures and obtain permission before tissue, or excuse me, before using the tissue for research. Hi, MS. But this, there's another cat in here? Yeah, he's like, oh, you guys are recording a podcast episode? He's so quiet. Oh my goodness. I don't mind him. He'll be fine. Yeah. So, but the standards in early 1950 were different. So when Henrietta was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital, doctors commonly collected tissue samples during procedures without explicitly asking patients if those samples could be used for research. Right. It's just how medical science operated at the time.

37:10 Sure. Which I which I get. You know, I totally understand that, but so to many researchers, the practice seems reasonable. And studying human tissue helped doctors understand disease and develop treatments that could save lives. Excuse me. But from the perspective of the Lax family, the situation looked different. I just want to interject something real quick. Yeah. So like for me with the Lax family, they are clearly being bombarded with these requests, questions, and such and so on. It's like, wait a minute. Not cool, dude. Yeah. And like, if I were them personally, I'd be like, no.

37:53 Give me some money for it, then I will give you my blood sample. Because fuck you. I didn't even know you had my mom's cells. Now they're around the fucking world. Yeah. You know? It's it's definitely a tricky gray situation. It is very discolored, yes. Oh. Oh, wow. He speaks. Do you need to get out, buddy? If you want out. He's like, um. Can I pick you up and show the people? You are cute. He's like, nope. I said no. Well, oh, okay. He's getting ready. It's four o'clock. Dinner time is soon.

38:33 Yeah. So my dinner's in two hours. So studying human tissue helped doctors understand disease and develop treatments that could save lives. But from the perspective of the Lax family, the situation looked different. So for more than 20 years, they had no idea that her cells were still alive. Right. They didn't know laboratories around the world were growing them. Right. And they didn't know scientists had built entire research programs around them. And facilities just to fucking grow them. Yes. And they certainly didn't know that companies were selling vials of those cells to other laboratories. See, and that's the thing too. There's a money aspect to it. It'd be one thing if it's like, hey, I mean, I need some more Gila cells.

39:15 Here you go, they'll reproduce on their own. No, like, yeah, we'll sell you some. Yeah. So there's money involved. Yeah. Which that makes this very tricky because the family, her family, isn't getting anything from that, but yet other companies are getting money from her cells. Yeah. That's the fucked up part. Yeah. So slowly the story of HELA cells became became nope, began spreading beyond the scientific community. Yeah. Journalists started asking questions. Medical people who study eth ethics began debating whether patients should have more control over how their tissues were used in research. I mean, I think so.

39:56 And the name Henrietta Lax, once hidden behind a scientific abbreviation, Gila, started appearing in public discussions about medical ethics. Okay. The story was no longer just about remarkable scientific discovery, but a conversation about consent, ownership, and the relationship between patients and medical research. Oh, sure. I get that. So here was a woman whose cells had helped scientists develop vaccines, study cancer, understand viruses, and explore the very mechanics of life itself. And yet for most of those those years, her name was rarely mentioned. Or at all. That changed in 2010 when the publication of the book The Immortal Light, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax by Rebecca Sklut.

40:47 Sklut. Mm-hmm. It is two stories in one. One of the scientific story of Gila cells, their incredible ability to survive, multiply, and contribute to decades of discoveries. The other was the story of Henrietta's family who spent years trying to understand how their mother's cells had become such an important part of scientific research. The book introduced millions of readers to Henrietta Lax and sparked widespread discussion about medical ethics, informed consent, and the history of biomedical research. When did this book come out?

41:27 2010. 2010, okay. So over time, recognition of Henrietta's contribution began to grow. Her story was now taught in classrooms. And that's how I got this book. In a classroom? My friend Sam took a class and this was required reading. And she said, You need to read this book. Is is this Sam's book? This is Sam's book. Did you dog ear some of the pages? I did not dog ear some of the pages. Why not? Apparently you do that to Bradley's books. So actually. Let me show you in here. Um if I find it, I'll if I find it online as well, I'll put it in there.

42:07 But there's some pictures in there. There's a picture of okay. So it's Henrietta's mother mother, Eliza Pleasant, died when Henrietta was four. Henrietta is buried somewhere in the clearing beside her mother's tombstone in an unmarked grave. All right. So it's like right next to. Hopefully you can find a picture of that. Otherwise, I'll try and zoom in on that when I do editing. But that's so have they still not put a headstone on her fucking thing? I mean, I don't know if they have now. She's I feel I feel like they should. I mean, she's like she's got life after death for love of God. I mean, and look at how many things have been created because of her cells, and she just keeps on living.

42:52 Yeah. The immortal Henrietta. So museums and scientific institutions began acknowledging her role in medical history. Researchers who worked with Gila cells increasingly spoke about the woman behind them. And meanwhile, her cells continued to do what they had always done divide. Which is crazy. Decade after decade, Gila cells remained one of the most widely used cells in the world. I I feel like they don't really divide. I feel like they unite. So questions about consent and ownership now never fully disappeared.

43:33 In the 21st century, as biotechnology companies continued to sell products derived from Gila cells, members of the Lex family began pursuing legal action. Sure. Their argument was not simply about money, it was about recognition and fairness, although they did receive money. Of course they did. The family believed that Henrietta's cells had contributed to a massive global research industry, yet the woman herself had never been asked for permission. Right. And her family. Had long remained unaware of how widely her cells were being used. The legal debate surrounding the case reflected larger questions facing modern medicine. Who benefits from medical discoveries?

44:14 Who should have a say in how biolog biological materials are used? Right. And how should the people behind those materials be acknowledged? In 2023, more than 70 years after the original sample was taken, members of the Lax family reached a confidential settlement with a biotechnology company that had been selling products derived from GELA cells. The terms of the agreement have not been made public. Which is fine. But the moment carried a certain amount of like historical weight. More than seven decades after Henrietta Lax walked into a hospital setting, um, the conversation about her cells and her legacy was still unfolding.

44:59 Today, GELA cells continue to grow in laboratories around the world. It remains one of the most important tools in modern biomedical research. And behind those four simple letters, he-la, this is the story of a woman whose cells helped shape the course of medical science. A woman whose name is now finally spoken alongside the discoveries her cells made possible, Henrietta Lex. And that's like one of the only photos of her? Yeah. That's crazy. One of a few. So apparently it's also an HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey, uh Winfrey, and Rose Bryan.

45:43 Byrne. Sorry, Rose Byrne. Like Bryan is what you do to your Thanksgiving turn. Burn. I like Rose Byrne. Me too. She's also fetching. But, anyways, um the problem I have with it, I'm totally on the Lax family side with this, is the fact that, yes, her cells have created countless discoveries. And again, you know my feelings on the medical world because of what happened with my dad and everything. I'm not saying anything specific. That's another day. But they did this to fucking make money. And they're making billions of dollars off of what these things do.

46:26 Because these are life-changing fucking things, but yet we're gonna charge you for it. Yeah, like it started off innocent with like we're just gonna research it, but now we're gonna make products out of it. And we're gonna make profits off of it because that's all they're about. Yeah. The medical community, there's the people who are on the boots on the ground, as people say. There are people who care. The people that control those boots on the ground, they don't give a fuck about you. Yeah. And that is very prevalent. And I've been very I'm not one to go to doctors, anyways. I'm not a doctor person. I fucking hate going to the doctor. I had to take my son to urgent care the other day because he has strep throat.

47:06 I didn't even want to take him because I didn't want to go. And it wasn't for me. Yeah. I just didn't want to go. But like ever since my dad, fuck that. Yeah. That's my personal opinion. To each their own on it, obviously. But it's all just a huge fucking business to make billions of dollars for people who run the fucking show. And it's bullshit. I'm not, you know, talking about universal worldwide healthcare or whatever the fuck like what Canada has or anything, because then hey, I broke my leg. We'll see you in six months. Because, you know, it can't get fucking in. But um, I don't know. I just think it's good stuff used for the wrong reasons and charged way too much for it.

47:51 So, anyways, that's all I have to say. How did you like your beer? So, this uh black bad boy, um black wheat ale, it was good. I don't know if I could drink a lot of them for sure. Uh we should give one to Nathan and you try the other one. But um, it was good. I enjoyed it. Uh curious to see it. We should pour yours in a pint glass just to see because it is a dark beer. So I'm curious to see what the overall coloring is. But of course, uh my chaos pattern is delicious. I've had these. Um I yeah, good stuff. I love your fresh coast kid. You made it through uh one and a partial, right? I did, yeah.

48:32 Good for you. I mean, that's great. Cheers. Cheers, chaz. Anyways. The uh the book by Rebecca Sklut, um The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax, um, is going to be in um our show notes. So yeah, we'll we'll put a link to that and uh see if uh hopefully some get some people to listen to audiobook or read it, even for that matter. So that's cool that Sam, I mean, was forced to read it and created the story, I'm sure she did, yeah. Well, Sam likes to read though, right? I mean, so that's awesome. But yeah, no, it's kind of cool that it's like it's funny how we find some of our stories, you know.

49:13 You do your searching and whatever, and then sometimes, hey, I had to read this book for school. You should fucking check it out, it's really cool. So, I mean, it's kind of cool how that happens, but so it was actually kind of funny because Nathan recently sent me a link to her story, not not the book, but just overall her yeah, like and I was like, Okay, I'll look into this. I've heard of her, and I've heard of her because Sam talked to that to me about this six months ago. Oh shit, and I told Sam, I was like, Yeah, Nathan told me to look up this person. She goes, I gave you that book. I'm like, Oh, I have that book. My bad. Yeah, that's funny. Well, no, that's cool though.

49:54 You know, obviously she's known. You know, I mean, Nathan gave it to you, she gave it to you, whatever. I I never heard of her before, so that was quite interesting. And the fact that her cells are still fucking growing to this day. Has did you come across or in the book or anything online research, whatever? Why are her cells so resilient and continue to do this? It's because of what I've told you about um them being cancer cells, right? And they're just because cancer reproduces, reproduces, reproduces. And because there's like a tail on the end of our chromosomes that die off. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, yep. And hers she produces an enzyme that makes signals, yeah, yeah, something like that.

50:37 That's crazy, you know, in layman's terms, in uneducated terms. And that's that's me, that's why we do this. But it's funny because like there's a Metallica song with a line, We Were Born for Dying. Not Henrietta, not Henrietta, she's fucking living on, she will live on forever. She's been to fucking space, and they actually dyed her cells. I don't know if they're all like this, but um, and I'll post a picture throughout, but like they dyed her the nucleus yellow. Oh, okay. And then I think the mitochondria, which is the powerhouse on the cell. That's you say that with so much confidence, like you knew that prior to this.

51:18 No, that was like whatever. Any who's anyway, but it looks like it almost looks like um fireworks in the sky. Like it's they're so pretty how they how they did that. Okay. I mean, I could just turn my container on. Uh we'll just put a picture in. Okay. That's gonna be too difficult. Fine. You're gonna knock shit over. I probably yeah. Yeah, I mean, who are we kidding? I know. I we aren't kidding anybody. Well, I suppose. All right, buffoons. That's it for today's episode. Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

52:01 Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also email us at history buffoonspodcast at gmail.com. We are Bradley and Kate, music by Corey Akers. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop. Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us. Remember, the buffoonery never stops.