Some Justice for Henrietta Lacks

Her 'immortal' cells have contributed to several major medical discoveries. Seventy-two years after her death, her family has settled a lawsuit against a biotech company

- PANDORA DEWAN

ON AUGUST 1, THE FAMILY OF Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cancer cells were harvested without her knowledge and used in wide-ranging medical research over many years, settled a lawsuit against biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific. Until now, the family has not received any compensation for Lacks' contributions to medicine. Her story was the basis for the bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown, 2010) by Rebecca Skloot and a 2017 television movie. August 1 would have been her 103rd birthday.

"There couldn't have been a more fitting day for her to have justice, for her family to have relief," her grandson, Alfred Lacks Carter Jr., told the Associated Press. "It was a long fight-over 70 years-and Henrietta Lacks gets her day."

In the suit, filed in October 2021, the family said the company had sold Lacks' cells and sought the rights to medical products developed from research using them without the family's permission. In a joint statement, both sides in the case said the terms of the settlement were confidential, adding, "The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of Court and will have no further comment."