Black patients were treated much later in their disease process. They were often not given the same kind of pain management that white patients would have gotten and they died more often of diseases.
From Rebecca Skloot
For me, it's writing a book and telling people about this story.
The laws are still very unclear. Cells are still taken from people without consent - a lot of people don't realize it.
I learned about HeLa cells in my first basic biology class, and I just became completely obsessed with them from that point on.
Often doctors didn't even tell you what was wrong with you. They just treated you, and sent you home.
The sort of thinking at the time was, 'Well, we're giving you access to medical care which you wouldn't otherwise be able to get, so your payment is that we get to use you in research.'
For scientists, growing cells took so much work that they couldn't get much research done. So the selling of cells was really just for the sake of science, and there weren't a lot of profits.
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