Guided Reading Questions Pt. 5

Chapter Fourteen: Helen Lane

1. In what specific ways do you think that learning of HeLa soon after Henrietta's death might have changed her family members' lives?
2. What reasons did Berg give for wanting information about the woman whose cells were used to grow HeLa?
3. Why didn't Henrietta's family know that her cells were still alive.

Chapter Fifteen: Too Young to Remember

1. Describe the abuse that Joe suffered under Ethel's care. How did this abuse affect him?
2. Describe Deborah's childhood. What challenges did she have to overcome?
3. What questions did Deborah have about her mother and sister? Why do you think no one told her very much about them?

Chapter Sixteen: Spending Eternity in the Same Place

1. Describe Skloot's visit to the Lacks family cemetery. What impact does her use of imagery have on you as a reader?
2. Compare and contrast the different attitudes the white and black Lacks family members held about race.
3. According to Henrietta's cousin Cliff, what is "beautiful" about the idea of "slave-owning white Lackses being buried under their black kin"?

Chapter Seventeen: Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable

1. What was the result of Southam's first research study? Based on these results, did his hypothesis appear to be correct?
2. How did Southam justify his decision to inject HeLa cells into patients without their knowledge or consent?
3. Why, specifically, id the Jewish doctors at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital object to Southam's cancer study?
4. Explain how the acton against Southam and Mandel led to the development of infomred consent forms as a standard medical practice.

Chapter Eighteen: Strangest Hybrid

1. Summarize the various ways that HeLa was used in the space program.
2. Explain what happens during somatic cell fusion.
3. How did the public respond to the idea of cell hybrids? In what specific ways did the media influence the public's perception of cell hybrids?


Chapter Nineteen: The Most Critical Time on This Earth is Now


1. How was Joe's life different from his brothers' lives? What do you think caused this difference?
2. Why do you think Joe turned himself in to the police?
3. Analyze the note that Joe wrote to the judge? What does it tell you about Joe's personality and background?
4. How did prison change Joe?

Chapter Twenty: The HeLa Bomb

1.  What unique abilities did HeLa have that allowed it to contaminate cultures without researchers being aware that contamination had occurred?
2. How did the scientific community respond to Gartler's theory about HeLa contamination?
3. What did Stanley Garter discover about eighteen of the most commonly used cell cultures?
4. How was Gartler able to link the contamination problem to HeLa?