The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Y

Wow, I really enjoyed this book and have raced through it. Something really different, well written and highly interesting. it's a mix of social history, poverty, race, ethics, biology and an amazing history of cell research. The cancerous cells of this woman,who died in Maryland in 1951, have become the standard for so much research over the world.  Without Henrietta's cells there would be no modern vaccines. (polio would still be killing people)  no modern chemotherapy drugs, and no world standard for human cell research. Her cells replicated perfectly and never died. They were like a magic porridge pot for cell researchers in the 1950s. her cells were called Hela and are still used prolifically all over the world.  

So far so good, but Henrietta's family never found about their Mother's cells until 20 years later when a variety of scientists, con-men and TV reporters turned up at their door.  The scientists wanted more cells from close relatives to do more research into genomes and the reporters of course wanted a story.

Anyway things went badly for the extended Lacks family.  They were angry that drug companies had made money from their mother without their knowledge and they were highly ignorant about what cells were. Nobody sat down with the family and explained what their mother had done for science and that there were no clones of Henrietta wandering around. 

The Lacks family are extremely poor and ill educated. A family with their roots in tobacco farming.The kids all left school before 14 and were never good in school anyway because of their congenital deafness never being diagnosed. ( a symptom of Henrietta marrying her cousin.) The grinding poverty of their lives is extreme and in complete contrast to the other strand of the story about cell research in labs all over the world by scientists.

Anyway, in the late 90s the author of this book managed to get the trust of the family and through years of research and persistence this book was written.  In the end it's a tribute to Henrietta and how out of her hard life something good appeared. ( her cervical cancer cells were so aggressive due to HPV and constant syphillis infections from her playboy husband.) Infact the HPV vaccine is only here because of Henrietta's cells.

As for the ethics of this book this has been complicated for me.  The story is a product of the American health system,the American education system, grinding poverty and race. The Lacks family are rightly angry that they are too poor to have health care and benefit from the the products which their mother 's cells helped to create but also they were all so badly educated they were living withsome strange godly fear that Henrietta still felt pain when her cells were tested on. Scientists are not the evil group in my opinion.  Johns Hopkins hospital/ University never sold Hela cells and shared their research with other scientists freely.  It was only when the cells had to be made on mass that drugs companies started to turn a profit on them. The problem is the health system in which the Lacks were embedded  A system which demonises the poorest and weakest in the community. 

The idea of informed consent did not exist in the 50s and doctors took samples from all cancerous biopsies from this hospital at the time. Henrietta just happened to be the perfect case. No cells ever reproduced in culture as well as hers. 

Anyway, if any of the above topics are interesting for you and you have a strong stomach then read this book.  It really made me think, the science was fairly easy to understand and the Lacks family story was interesting, irritating, annoying and heartbreaking all at the same time.  All I can say is thank god I don't have to deal with the American health system!  As for the history of black only wards and black only toilets and secret syphillis testing on the black wards in Tuskegee...it's a history that has to be read to be believed. 

The Secret Garden

My mate Nicky of Newcastle facebooked me a few weeks back to see if I had ever read this. She pursuaded me to get out my copy and reread it. So I did, a book I have had for over 35 years. I haven't read it since I was about 11 though and I know I really loved it then. Would it be the same as an adult?!

Well, I really enjoyed it. It is such a great book to read when you are feeling down, unloved and grumpy because these words describe the two main characters, Mary and Colin. Their personality and physical changes throughout the book are really amazing.  Their spoilt, selfish ways are the perfect antidote for each other and slowly they change to much happier and healthier children. And like them, you also get a real life enhancing boost when you read this book.

The garden though is the main pull of this book.  it is absolutely magical and even now, so many years later I could so quickly imagine again this absolutely amazing secret place. I could see it all laid out so perfectly. the mystery, the magic and the secrecy are so well described.  It really was still as exciting as when I read it as a kid.  This is weird for me because I hate gardening ( although I have done some today.). But I can still appreciAte the magic as these kids begin to grow and feel loved through this connection with nature. And the descriptions are just so vivid. Almost real.  (maybe all these clear pictures are because I read it so many times as a kid and the images all just came flooding back!

 Through the vivid descriptions of nature, growth, change and elemental forces and through rooting for 'Mary, Mary, so contrary,' you just feel really uplifted. You kind of think, if these spoilt revolting brats can change for the better then there is hope for me!

It's interesting to think about the few adult characters in the book. The only two caring adults seem to be dickon's mUm and Weatherstaff. Mrs. Medlock just can't be arsed with the kids and Mary's Mum was an ex pat socialite in India who just wanted to forget that Mary ever existed.  

I always loved the freaky beginning of the book when Mary's entire family and servants all die of cholera. That Mary stays alive through drinking wine dregs left at a banquet table is brilliantly grotesque! The levels of unstated abuse and neglect in this book are astounding.

As for Colin's dad, he is just pathetic.  Stuck in mourning for Colin's dead Mother and totally unble to sort himself out until he has 'a moment' in Italy and  realises that the soul of his wife is calling him back to the garden. 

 

Also, I wish Colin wasn't in the book so much.  his preaching and whinging and irritating ways got on my nerves a bit and because  I loved Mary I found that her voice was just pushed out of the limelight.  By the end it's all Colin's story.  he kind of hijacks it.

As for Dickon, wow, what a boy.  I fell in love with him all over again! only now do I see him as a Yorkshire based Peter Pan .  I'm sure he's still on the moor today with his whistle, his squirrels and his lamb. 

A Carpet Ride to Khiva

V

Yippeeeee. Finally after a long drought I finish a book. I have been trying to plough through 100 Years of Solitude and finding it impossible to pay attention or really care. I gave up.  Finally I feel like I have resurfaced from literally 100 years of pretentious boredom.  I've read it before and supposedly liked it. But I think I was dillusional at the time! 

Anyway, this book was great. A bit slow at the beginning but once it got going I couldn't put it down. (Plus now my kindle has upgraded I'm a bookworm again.)

I thought it would be a travel book about 7 years travelling along the Silk Road from China to Turkey, but it wasn't. The British guy writing his memories  lived in Khiva in Uzbekistan for seven years in his late 20s and early 30s. He is the same age as me (or thereabouts.) so lots of his history reference points are similar to mine.

He vividly created what life in Uzbekistan was like. A country in mad flux between Islamic traditions and collapsed Soviet policies. A country and an area which doesnt know it's place in the modern world. He desperately wanted to start a carpet weaving cooperative with help from UNESCO,employing women and local weavers who could remember the old local traditions of a skill which was totally dying out.

The beginning is a bit dull as he talks about settling in to this quite weird, Borat like hell hole of a place. I was beginning to wonder if he was sane to want to live in such a country. Thenslowly characters formed, stories were told and histories unfurled and the book began to race off in many directions.

I read about the history of carpet weaving in central Asia and how there isn't much local inspiration left. Most locals were making factory produced copies of Turkish carpets. The author took his first pattern from this one local fragment from the15th century. (The only bit left and residing in a museum in Greece.) 

He made up patterns, and also looked at old pictures and sourced natural dyes, ending up with a business which was able to sell great carpets to tourists.

It was interesting reading about the history of design and pattern in Central Asia and the great world of Islamic design.  Also the history of how Central Asians managed to sneak out the secret method from China on how to make silk and also how to get bright natural colours from madder Red and other natural sources.

Not only was it full of Central Asian history but also the stark realities of life in Uzbekistan now. How locals are victims of a strong Soviet system. How blind people and even just poor sighted people were totally institutionalised. How the KGB still works under a different name, the extreme corruption and how people open new mosques by celebrating with massive bottles of vodka.

I loved his trips into Afghanistan to get looms, dyes and materials and his wonderful descriptions of this country too. The fear of being a westerner, the way he wanted to start a factory here just to stop local woman getting more and more depressed whilst imprisoned in their homes. The hideous beaurocracy he had to deal with to get back over the border. The problems he had with culture and language and how finally the corruption and envy  towards his business caught up with him and he finally became blacklisted in Uzbekistan. The ending involves him spending time as a stateless person in aTajikistani airport lounge. 

He comes across as a pretty unassuming guy who falls in love with a mysterious and unknown part of the world. I enjoyed living it all through his memories. People, places, colours, smells ,art and history all came alive.

Anyway, well worth a read if you are into this kind of stuff!