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Attorneys representing the family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were cloned, mass produced, and widely used for research after being removed from a tumor on her cervix without her knowledge in 1951, have filed a lawsuit against one of the companies that commercialized the cell line. In the suit, filed today (October 4), they argue that pharmaceutical giant Thermo Fisher Scientific continued to derive commercial benefit from so-called HeLa cells, which have been used in tens of thousands of scientific and medical studies, long after their unethical origins became known.
The attorneys further request that Thermo Fisher compensate the family, and seek a court order obliging the company to obtain the Lacks family’s permission to use the cell line.
“Black people have the right to control their bodies,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, says in a statement, The ...
