A Conversation with Rebecca Skloot

WKNO's Pierre Kimsey interviews Rebecca Skloot, science journalist and contributing editor at Popular Science magazine who makes her home in Memphis. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her debut book, uncovers the heretofore unknown story of the woman whose cancerous cells were cultivated, without her family's consent or knowledge, into the first "immortal" human cell culture and helped provide some of the major advances in 20th century medicine.

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[brentindavis]

wow!!!! thats just pure evil..... no telling how they are using this as a weapon against us.....

[theleftflank]

@viratkohli33 Ignorance has nothing to do with it. & how can hate be false, unless you mean to suggest that I am in love with Skloot! Also, I sincerely doubt you know her well enough to be able to vouch for her character, but... whatever.

My point: Many take from blacks only to enrich themselves. It just so happens that this 1 had the good luck & the foresight to cover a story with enough juice to take her over the top. Her work, her money - I get it! Just don't fake the funk!

[emidnite]

@theleftflank skloot set up a foundation for the family that takes care of them and gives them health care

[viratkohli33]

Do not speak with ignorance and false hate. Skloot is a genuinely good person.

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. On Page 251, Skloot writes, "Each time I told her [Deborah] the same thing: I hadn't sold the book yet, so at that point I was paying for my research with student loans and credit cards. And regardless, I couldn't pay her for her story. Instead, I said, if the book ever got published, I would set up a scholarship fund for descendants of Henrietta Lacks."

[rjohson]

@theleftflank my mistake i believe your right, i remebre reading the family asking for some of the proceeds and i believe the author said no.

[theleftflank]

@rjohson Greetings, I have gone over the book and could not find where it indicated that a portion of the proceeds would go to the family. In fact, if you look @this video and others on the web you'll see that at no time does the family mention that they were recompensed for the intrusive experiments and eventual profit-making of the now ubiquitous Hela Cells. However, the author does have a website that allows visitors to donate money directly to the family but that is separate I'm afraid.

[rjohson]

@theleftflank your wrong some of the procedds of the book did go to the family

[theleftflank]

The book itself (i.e. style, grammar,etc.,) is of course no great shakes. The subject matter however, is enough to merit a second look. Incidentally, I am never surprised by the cold conniving calculus of whites to dupe blacks out of everything from land to... even cells apparently. I have nothing but contempt for the giddy author whose exultation of this unfortunate woman is anything if not disingenuous. So moved was she, that none of the proceeds of the book go to the family.

[mzenter]

This is a crucially relevant, important project and courageous creation by the author vs Bio-abuse of humans. Unfortunately here, this important Interview is made with almost no sound to it. Perhaps that is why there were no comments previous to this one, too. It has been online since Nov. 11, 2010, after all. It is a shame.

Congratulations to Ms Skloot.

The only recommendation to her? Improve her diction, speech speed and try for clearer English. Also, fear not to state Truth more forwardly.