This week we get into how doctors at John Hopkins purposefully gave misleading information to the public about the HeLa strain. They gave a false name to obscure Henrietta Lack's true name, successfully hiding her identity for about 20 years.

We also talk about Chester Southam and some incredibly unethical uses of the Hela cells. He injected over 600 patients with live cancer cells to see if cancer was communicable. Other than a small study with prisoners, he never told the patients about what he was doing, just telling them it was an innocuous immunity test. Though Southam was only ever given a temporarily suspended license and a slap on the wrist the debate about his actions helped solidify the country's stance on informed consent.

Meanwhile researchers began learning how to create hybrid cells going so far as to make the first HeLa/Mouse hybrids. They used this practice to help accurately map the Human Genome discovering what each individual chromosome did. Scientists were very excited about hybrids but the public immediately feared the worst. Worried about an army of mouse men and other half man monsters sweeping the nation.

Fears about mousemen proved unfounded but Hela was about to rock the scientific world when they discovered that the cells were so robust and resourceful that they were able to move from culture to culture with ease through unwashed hands or equipment or even through the air on a speck of dust. This revelation would later be called the HeLa Bomb and rectifying the massive contamination problem would cost millions and millions of research dollars as well as thousands of hours of wasted time.

And we will finally talk about how Henrietta's name finally reached public knowledge and then how that news made it back to the Lacks Family.

Hope you enjoy!

Sources:

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

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