Ep 70 Henrietta Lacks: HeLa, There, & Everywhere

This Podcast Will Kill You

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Health & Fitness, Science

4.8 • 17.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2021

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of the many topics our podcast has covered in the past, from smallpox to scurvy, vaccines to birth control and beyond, one factor has linked nearly all of them: HeLa cells. These cells and the woman from whom they were taken have often remained behind the scenes in the coverage of these topics, but they have nevertheless been absolutely fundamental in the development of technologies, the advancement of knowledge, and the discussions of ethics, ownership, and informed consent. In this week’s episode, we want to do more than acknowledge the contribution of Henrietta Lacks and her cells to the field of biomedical science. We want to explore what it is about HeLa cells and other cell lines that makes them ‘immortal’. We want to learn what Henrietta was like as a person. We want to ask how it was possible for her cells to be taken from her without her consent or knowledge. And we want to share the tremendous impact Henrietta and her cells have made and continue to make on our world in so many ways. For more information about the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, check out the website.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We at Wundry live, breathe, and downright obsess over True Crime.
0:04.0	And now we're launching the ultimate True Crime fan experience, Exhibit C.
0:09.2	Join now by following Wundry Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to True Crime on Wundry and Amazon
0:15.3	Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal.
0:45.3	Music.
1:03.2	Hi, I'm Erin Welsh.
1:05.6	And I'm Erin Almond Updake.
1:07.6	And this is this podcast will kill you.
1:10.4	Yeah, welcome everyone.
1:13.3	Welcome, welcome.
1:16.7	This episode, I'm very excited about it because it's very different than our normal episodes.
1:22.0	It's a very different. Can I be completely honest? I was really stressed out about it.
1:27.6	Same. Has it so different than our normal episodes?
1:30.8	But finally today, as I was like organizing all my notes, I got really excited about it.
1:36.3	Oh good, okay, good. I'm very excited to hear what you're going to tell me.
1:41.8	Yeah, I hope that you like it. I'm sure that I will, Erin. Come on.
1:46.0	Come on. I'm very excited to learn all about what you're going to tell me today, Erin,
1:50.9	because I know very little about it. Well, and your nerves may have gone away, but my nerves
1:57.0	still here. I'm still nervous that I'm not going to do a good job, but you know what? Just,
2:04.3	it'll be okay. It's okay that we always feel that way and we just do our best, Erin.
2:08.8	That's true. That's true. We do do our best.
2:10.9	Yeah. What are we even talking about, so you're going to feel like the suspense has been building.
	...

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