Henrietta Lacks Pt Four- Spleen on Me, When You're Not Strong

This episode we get a bit more into how the family was effected by the news that part of their mother was still alive. 

We talk about the founding of John Hopkins and the pretty warranted fears that the black community had for night doctors and scientists looking to use black bodies for experiments. 

Then we get into the beginning of a legal debate determining whether we should retain property rights to parts of our body once they are disguarded. We talk about Ted Slaven who set up his own deal with the pharmaceutical companies to sell his blood eventually starting a company to produce and sell biological products splitting profits directly with the donors as partners. Slaven's blood would eventually be used to create a Hepatitis Vaccine. 

We also talk about John Moore who had an incredibly rare type of Leukemia and a 22 lbs spleen. The cell line created with his spleen and samples taken were valued at  three billion dollars. He would eventually take UCLA and his doctor to court suing them for theft of his body. 

Hope you enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Don't be ashamed if you get confused when you talk to your friends or you watch the news. They're trying to tell you where it all went wrong. Now you don't need to argue, you just say this. Stuck in the dick. Rich people to have an Rich People.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Yeet the Rich. I am Emily Walsh, and I am here with my co-host and husband who did not put himself on Do Not Disturb, Danny Moss.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. It is Yeet After Dark. The darkest of the dark.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Just to give a beverage baby update. Baby is asleep, but it took a lot of effort.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Um, she was not feeling it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

We thought we were gonna have to deal with a Knicks game tonight, but we didn't because Nixon Five, baby. Nixon Five.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

However, uh, she wanted a rematch, I guess. Yeah, I guess. She's she was fired up, but she did learn how to high five today. So that was really cool. That was pretty cool. Yeah, and so now she can't sleep. And she can't sleep. Yeah. Um, and we're having whiskey because it's 10 p.m. on Monday night, and you guys, um, this will come out sometime on Tuesday. Yeah. Sorry about last week. Yeah, really sorry. Our child turned one.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, she turned one. We had a really lovely birthday party. Uh, it did take uh a lot of planning, and my work has decided to go fully off the rails. Yeah. So uh here we are.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Here we are. And if you guys are the type of people that we don't personally know, because some of you are just people we know. And thank you for being here. Yeah, we love you. But if you're new to the show or if you're just like a cool, fun listener from somewhere far away, and you're like, man, it seems like they really put in a lot of effort to this show. They seem so sleepy, but they still make it for us. Tell a friend. Yeah, post make a review, do something, you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Which like we've been seeing some good good numbers lately.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah, I know we're we're on the upswing, but I can always beg. I can always be out here in the streets asking for more support.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I'm feeling extra dulcet.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I know. Well, I mean because I'm panicked that we're sleepy. Yeah, first of all, we're sleepy. Second of all, I don't want to get so worked up that I wake the baby up because then I'll this episode will end and I will talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

80s radio video. Yeah, we're exactly that we're we're there. This one's going out to the Frankie.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

And it's called Please Sleep to the Morning.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Late night slumber bunnies over here.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

By morning, I mean past 5 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

That would be great.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

This one's going out to my baby. Bye bye. My baby. Um, but yeah. What are we what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Okay, so um you remember what we were talking about, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Henrietta lags.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah. I'm I'm glad you remember because I forgot there for a second. You did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

That's not great. Not great. This is episode four of sixteen.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Four of sixteen. No, I think it'll be. I think uh unfortunately, I don't think I got my uh my ducks in a row. The ducks are are they are loose, wild. They're out there in them streets. Uh so I think we got one more, one more after this episode.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Also, it is a whiskey episode, and also I didn't realize the ice maker was off. So we are using whiskey rocks, and it seems like we're more pretentious than we are. Someone gave them to probably Danny as a weird gift, and I use them occasionally. Yeah. But we're doing whiskey slash our best.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

We're doing whiskey slash our best, exactly. Get ready. This is gonna be uh it's gonna be setting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Great.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Cool. So uh what do you remember? What uh let's do a little recap quick.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Her family just found out that uh her cells are still in the mix. Yeah. And that was the dramatic uh that was the dramatic end. You did a little skit. I did do a little skit at the end, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, because there was just it was just like a random friend of a friend that was like, oh hey, what's in those?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah. Wax. That's interesting. And like, how much more do we need to really recap? This lady passed away at a very tragically early age. They stopped treating her, they use her cells to this day. There's other people that some guy filled with cancer to be to do fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I called him the Nuremberger because he kind of breaking the Nuremberg code. That old turkey burger. Yeah, his name was Chester South, and we don't like him, you know. Yeah. You know, a Nazi by any other name.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Still a Nazi.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah. Uh they also hid uh her family like Henrietta's true identity for a long time, making up uh a pseudonym to kind of you know shield her for whose help, nobody really knows.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Just if you're doing something that you feel like you need to hide, it's probably not something you should be doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yep. There was uh human-animal hybrids. There were the mouse men there for a little bit. Everybody was worried about mouse men.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Which again, I imagined is a furry ear in a petri dish.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Oh, yeah. Yeah, with just like a flippy tail. Yeah. Different. Uh they made a high security vault of all of the like uh you know immortal human cells of the time. Yep. Uh but then they discovered that He gets in everything. He gets in everything and takes over everything.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

It's a rule where there's peanut butter in my chocolate, chocolate and my peanut butter type of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah. And uh definitely a lot of people in the family believe that uh Henrietta was getting back at them for not telling the family, which I agree with. Let's do that. That's fun. There's also like uh the one of the reporters that goes to like interview the family gets in a huge car accident on his way to uh to the family, and then later his house burns down, burning all of his notes, so he had to like do it all over again. So it's like that is extra spite. There might be a little Henrietta ghost kicking around. Uh George Guy passed away of really aggressive pancreatic cancer.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Right, and he was like, just kidding, guys, I'm nice. You can have my pancreas.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, yeah. He did try to like get some immortal cells made of his own thing, but think out of ego and not out of kindness based on the little I know. But the you know, the rest of it, he did tech price's his the the last few months of his life were pretty excruciating. Uh that being said, still still not great guy.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Not great.

unknown 6:29

Not great.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Um and then yeah, Henrietta's name finally makes it in a print, and then randomly by happenstance, the family finds out. So the source material for this series is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax by Rebecca Sclut.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Glad I know that part of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

The Skalut part?

unknown 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

That's the normally when people look up a book, they they definitely put it in the copyright year.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah, I just it's it's it's felt nice rolling off the top.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

It's thorough. In this dulcet night radio dark.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Read after dark. All uh all those night birds. What is that? Night nightbirds are a different thing. Nightbirds for us are night owls. Stay up late.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Nightbirds are what I call bats because I'm afraid of bats because I had a Batman-like scenario happen to me in my youth. But we don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

No, no, we don't. We only have time for sleep.

unknown 7:23

No, we don't.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

We don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay, so uh after talking to that researcher, Babette Lax, which is the wife of Lawrence Lax.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Which it's tough that an in-law has to break the news. Yeah. I would hate to have to go to your family and be like, hey, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Well, and she just like ran home and was basically like, your mother's alive, sort of. Kind of. They biffed that. She biffed that so uh Babette and Lawrence were stunned, as you would be, uh and f pretty fearful because like the news of the Tuskegee syphilis study had just leaked uh and was shut down. And also there's there's also like a long history of rumors surrounding John Hopkins in the black community. Uh so like nightmares of doctors coming in the night and taking unsuspecting black people uh off the streets to do medical testing on them, you know, as a thing. Yeah. This kind of concept, this fear is pretty common. Uh and and you know, some of it is is founded because as we know, a lot of people were used for medical testing, and they were just like, oh, well, you're poor and you can't afford this medical treatment, so we're gonna take whatever we can get out of you. Uh but there's a lot of other stuff that happened, and one part of the whole spirit of this uh goes all the way back to the times of slavery. So slave owners would spread rumors about evil spirits spreading disease and death uh outside of the the like plantation, basically using mythology as a weapon to keep it to scare them into side. Yeah, to keep people inside and keep them from trying to escape. Um, so not only would they be viciously punished if they tried to escape, they were also like scared. There were hungry, angry spirits out there that were that were gonna get them. And and some of that was actually taken from you know uh the original cultures, but again, really morphed in a kind of sick and evil way.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Uh this is a a real tangent. Will you come with me? Sure. Uh so when I used to work on scare attractions uh and pain scenery for fancy haunted houses, we spent a month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and half of the scary things were like American scary things, like uh the guy from Freddy and Nightmare on Elm Street, and then half of them were Malaysian folk uh monsters. Okay. And one of the rooms was genuinely terrifying because you walked in and it was like probably 50 mummies all like mummied up, like completely still. And you walk in and you can tell that they're fake, uh-huh. And you kind of are like, What's what's gonna happen? And you stand there for maybe 30 full seconds, and then one mummy just goes to the side, and you're like That's a nope, it's a nope for me. And uh yeah, that I didn't have to be Malaysian to be terrified of that.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so similar to similar. Similar. Uh they they told slaves that there were also like night doctors out there waiting to capture them and do like crazy scientific testing on them.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Why um, and maybe you don't know. Did they want them to be afraid of doctors at the time or just again on the land?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

I'm not sure. I mean, but a lot of it was definitely uh keep them on the land, but then uh yeah, maybe it's like not trusting outside institutions. I'm not I'm not 100% sure. But something that did happen is to like, you know, some slave owners would put on like sheets wear them around to act as either doctors and or spirits. And then later that basically uh became the white-hooded cloaks of the KKK. Sure. So that's that's kind of where some of the roots of that happened. This whole story is a real Yeah, there's a some there's some dark stuff in the the history of uh well, medicine, but also exploitative medicine. Exploitative yeah, and you know, slavery. It turns out not great. Not great and pretty bad. Um so also beyond all of that, uh many doctors, like legitimate doctors, not not rumors to keep people from not spirits from freedom. Uh actual doctors would test new experimental drugs on slaves and operating on them, even uh though sometimes nothing was wrong with them. Just to see sometimes without anesthetic.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

So there is there was there still is a large I think we've spoken about it, misconception um that black people experience less pain than white people, and that is not true. Not true.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

And uh yeah, and kind of some evil shit. Yes, but there's there's like just a lot of racism that's still kind of built into you know, really everything but the the medical community that's really just cooked into every layer of the fabric of our lives, yeah, but especially medicine. Yeah, not not good. Um really just uh examine your miscon your preconceptions, if you could please. That would be great. Think about that. Um so jump forward a few decorate decades, and as the Great Migration North was happening, research hospitals like John Hopkins were offering money for corpses to allow doctors to like uh do autopsies and you know learn about human anatomy.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

To mayor? Gravedigging?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Gravedigging, a lot of gravedigging, and also maybe murder, but uh occasional there basically like a dark underground industry appeared providing southern black bodies to northern hospitals and medical schools. Um so like everything is bad. Yeah. Uh many families had a rule that no children could go anywhere near John Hopkins after dark for fear that they would be snatched off the street and used for terrifying experiments. So some of it, some of it is definitely uh uh based on the mythology, but a lot of it is based on like, oh no, oh there's some bad stuff going on there. Um I mean, you know, a lot of that that period in medicine when people were like, oh, we need to actually look at organs in a way that we hadn't done before, like all over Europe and England and stuff like that. There's so much history of like, you know, body snatching and and yeah, like grave robbing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

And like grave just like fresh grave robbing. Yeah. Like if they see a fresh grave, they're like, Let me get in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, let me get in there and then take it over to these doctors who are gonna pay me money for this thing.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Like Deacon Brody.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Did you know that audience? That he's a bar we used to go to, but also a guy from Scotland who he did that, right? Did I invent that? Or he was a lock guy?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

He he was the lock guy, but there was another guy. Uh there was like a a duo of criminals in Edinburgh that uh on the same walking tour that we learned more about Deacon Brody. We learned about that guy. I don't remember their names, but they were definitely great Robin.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

They were like the basis for Jekyll and Hyde, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Or maybe I'm no, this is that Deacon Brody was the basis for Jekyll and Hyde. So you're you're you're definitely you got it all in there.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

And then I put them in a blunder.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Night, night uh heat after dark. Heat after dark, baby. Um so most black families believe that the reason that John Hopkins was built in a poor black neighborhood in Baltimore was not to help the needy, but instead to give them easy access to black test subjects.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

That feels correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah. Um, so John Hopkins originally just like to give to give context to all of this, uh, with again the caveat that like even though the intentions were good, uh the racism of doctors later kind of uh erased some of those basic good intentions. So John Hopkins uh hospital was originally founded in 1873. Uh the man who founded it grew up on a tobacco plantation in Maryland. As he was growing up, his father actually freed the slaves on the plantation nearly 60 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. So ahead of his time, uh again, still was using slaves. Sure, sure. But uh, you know, this is this does not feel like uh, well, they're gonna get freed anyway, so I better let them go. This is pretty significant error of his ways, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

So um turns out they're people.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Oh wow. Oh boy. Um, so John Hopkins uh eventually made large sums of money working as a banker and a grocer. He never married, so he had no heirs. So eventually he donated seven million dollars to build a medical school and charity hospital, uh, stating that the express purpose of the hospital was to help those who otherwise could not get care without regard to sex, age, or race. Okay, thank you, John. So the only patients that were actually charged were those who could easily afford it, uh, and they would use that money to help fund their charity.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

But also remember, medical care at that time was basically free. My grandmother, when she gave birth to my uncle, who was in his 70s, but still, when she gave birth to him, her doctor was like, you know what? That was a tough one. Why don't you save the money, buy yourself a nice hat? So that means that A, babies were the same class as hats. Yeah, right. And B, it seems like a maybe a really rough. Nice hats. Nice hats. Nice hats. Go buy yourself a nice hat.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Go buy yourself a nice hat. Weird, a little patronizing, but I guess different time. Free is free, you know. Um so the the intention of the hospital was good, uh, but just because it started there. Of course, doesn't mean it started ruined. So, as we talked about, researchers began seeing it as their right to kind of do whatever research they wanted or take whatever samples they wanted from the poor, kind of in exchange for medical care. Uh, one John Hopkins doctor took more than 7,000 blood samples from neighborhood children, mostly black, uh, looking for a genetic predisposition for criminal activity. So, like eugenic shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

I was until you said that, I was like, blood sample, is that so bad? Maybe they got a cookie, like whatever.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

He was like, I I need to make sure that everybody knows figure out why I don't like you based on your blood. Yeah, some evil shit there. And of course, the doctor also never got any consent. Like, I'm not sure how we got them to donate the blood, but cookies, probably. Probably cookies.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Um, so that's why I give blood still.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

True. Gotta get them Lorna Dunes. So in the late 1990s, it was discovered that some researchers were exposing children to lead in a study looking for like lead abatement techniques. So all the children in the study were black, uh, and at least one child developed lead poisoning. Uh, it's actually kind of nuts because basically researchers went into apartments and contaminated them with lead and then encouraged landlords to rent them out to to families with children so they could see the effects. See that and this is like 1990.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

The exact opposite happened to me in 2004, which is only 14 years later, where I moved into my college apartment and they made me sign a thing that said if I got pregnant, I would tell them. Because the lead was low enough that apparently my drunk 21-year-old butt was fine. But if I had a baby, they would not be fine.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Right. And they were like, Lady, just don't like the Just let us know and don't eat companies.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

And I was like, girl, I'll sign whatever. I'm ready for this apartment.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

I guess that was 2006, but still.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. Lead. Um so of course the the biggest example from John Hopkins, uh, at least nowadays, the most well known, is of course the Henrietta Lacks story that we're talking about. So would you look at that? So uh the family was so just now learning about like how important their mother was in medicine and research and science and all this stuff, and uh they could not afford health care of their own. So a lot of them had some some ailments, some of them because you know their parents were cousins, which was not ideal. Uh, but a lot of it, you know, was just because they're people in America trying to make a living. People in America, and especially like black families are often the communities that they can afford to live in and the communities that they're allowed to live in because of redlining and all that other stuff, are often uh places where the most pollution happens. So like the you know, I'd I'd like to know whether because the the black community has a high uh instances of asthma, but I believe a lot of that is is caused, is not, yeah, it's not so much genetic as it is the fact that you know the places where they're they're living are yeah very polluted.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

So that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, so you know, not good. Okay, so while the family was like reeling from the revelations about Henrietta's pseudo-immortality, the scientific community was still trying to figure out what to do about their whole Gila contamination problem. They were like, we gotta figure out whether or not Gila is actually in it. We need more information. So a scientist realized that uh if they got samples from Henrietta's immediate family, preferably her husband and her children, they could create a full map of Henrietta's like genome in order to use that to more conclusively determine whether or not things had been contaminated. Okay. Um so a man named uh Victor McCusick was a prominent geneticist at the time and had been one of the first people to like publish Henrietta's name. Uh he said that he could help with the gathering samples. Um so he worked with he worked at Johns Hopkins where Day and the kids were still patients, so he had access to all of their medical records. So he knew where they lived.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

And is this like the 70s or 80s? What what decade is this all happening in?

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah, the this is the seven. Uh he sent one of his like postdoctoral fellows, you know, somebody that was learning under him, then uh Susan Chu to collect the samples. And she she was not told to really inform the family much about what the purpose of the study was or really kind of anything. Uh and when she got back to Baltimore, she called Day immediately. The way Day remembers this conversation, they called and told him that uh part of his wife was still alive and that they'd been doing experiments with her, and uh they wanted to come and test his him and his children to see if any of them had the same cancer that Henrietta did.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

What are you doing when you get that phone call? Uh you're like your wife that you thought was dead 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

We're not gonna really explain that yes, she's still dead. You just have some cells.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

This is just some cells.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Because that that first initial sentence, I'm like, you've kept her in a closet? What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, what is happening? Well, and that's the that's the thing, is that uh so we'll talk about a lot about uh Deborah uh one uh one of Henrietta's daughters, who like is the most like Motivated and dedicated to figuring out what happened to her mother. Yeah. And um, but she like is constantly vacillating between a state of like complete fear and then like really wanting to know more. So she keeps like hearing things about her mother, like, oh, she was used in uh you know, she going to space, curing polio, uh, you know, the atomic bomb. And in her head, she's not picturing just like some cells in a petri dish. She's like thinking of her mother being blown up by a bomb or shot in display.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I would love to like dive deeper into that in a way that I don't think I can because I don't I don't know this woman. But I've talked well, the three the reason being I've talked to a lot of people, friends, and just anytime I get into a dead parent conversation with somebody who lost their parent as a child, I've talked to three or four people that have had dreams, including myself, where that parent is alive. Oh. And like like just was left, quote unquote. And like even when my dad passed away, I remember pretending he had left to like make it easier to be like, he's on a business trip. Like, I just have to live today.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Like, you've had some bad dreams where you're like, I I had a dream that my dad had a secret family and he's like, Yeah, no, I have that dream a fair amount, or that he's like, nah, I left on purpose.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Sorry. And I've I but I know many people that have had a similar dream that had good and I had a good relationship. Like I'm saying they all had like no reason to dream that and they did. So I'm just like curious if it's if it's just partially if it is specific to this situation, or if it's partially just lost parent, like can't wrap your like what I wonder what age she was, like can she just not wrap her head around it?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

And like she had a she she had a hard life. Yeah, you know, so like all the children kind of had a pretty a pretty hard upbringing because day uh uh he kind of checked out a lot uh once the the um once Henrietta passed and uh you know eventually Bobette came in and like other people kind of came in and kind of helped helped raise the the the kids the rest of the way. But like you know, Joe Joe had a lot of anger issues. Uh the the one of the sons and he um he he got into a lot of fights, he like stabbed somebody and then like uh eventually got out of jail and then went into the army but then was discharged. Or no, I think he went in the army before he he ended up killing the guy, but um he just very he was uh he Joe was actually the son who Henrietta was pregnant with when she like had the cancer. Gotcha. So like uh, you know, they don't know whether some of that affected his his you know um his kind of mentality in life. But either way, I think that you know, anger is not an un unreasonable response to all this. Not at all. Because uh they were very young when it happened, but um eventually he got in the army and then was discharged because of his anger, and then he got out and he stepped stepped somebody and went to jail and got back out, and like the author and him eventually formed a relationship that was kind of built on more trust, but he was he was incredible like a very hard critic of her and did not trust her at all. Um Deb uh Deborah like she was sexually assaulted during like while she was young by one of the the family neighbor friends and and um you know married somebody to get out of that, but that guy was also abusive, and then so like she's got a lot of things going on that like and I think I don't really know because I don't I don't really know this woman either, but I think partially out of like you know uh escapism, but partially out of like really wanting to know her her parents, she really fixates she goes back and forth between like wanting to know as much as possible and then being like I can't do this. Yeah, exactly. And like to the point where some reporters come and like some news gets out and things happen where she learns stuff, but she gets so excited that like uh she almost has a heart attack a couple of times. And um but her and the this this is the the person that that really works directly with the author a lot and and like they're they're kind of a team in figuring out everything about Henrietta, and um, but it's it's constantly day to day. It's it's not she's not bipolar, but it is it is a similar it's like a PTSD response of of like um she's every now and then the author would say something and and Deborah would just kind of snap and be like, Are you here? Who sent you here? Yeah, why are you paying you or like you're trying to kind of take more from the family? Um, and it was just it it it's I don't know that I really feel feel for this woman, and she like boy, she was supposed to speak at a uh like this huge like kind of conference, a medical conference that was commemorating Henrietta Lax and like her contribution, and she was gonna go speak there, and then the nine 9-11 happened. Oh my gosh. So that got cancelled. Always 9-11. And and she ended up passing away before like being able to like reschedule this whole thing. So like um, but I am sweaty and unhappy. Yeah, yeah. Deborah's a it's a it's a tough story on on her end, but she's you know, um she really just wants to know her mother because she never really she she was too young when she passed away to to really know her, and like she big gets little pieces and and learns more about her, and I don't know. Um it's just a crazy crazy story. Yeah, it's just a tough, tough world, and it like the the her dying young is is one thing, but the like the way that you know now she's immortal and all of this other stuff, and the like kind of you know, magical mysticism because she doesn't know who to trust anymore, because also you hear about these things and all of the like myths of evil doctors coming to that the that becomes so real that you're like I don't know what Drew can be.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

I mean it is real, they lied to them, like it whatever regardless of the levels of deception they did, they were doctors who lied and did something without consent. So she has a great reason to be 100%.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

So, okay, back to uh this this postdoctorate fellow came by to be like, Hey, we need your blood. Yeah, uh, and didn't really tell them why. And uh the the so day remembers it as them being like, Hey, we want to make sure that they don't have the same cancer as as Henrietta does, but that test was actually impossible at the time. Like, I don't even know that they could do that now. No, yeah um, and uh the the thing is uh the Dr. Susan Shu uh was new to America, English was not her first language, and she like the her strongest English was in like the scientific jargon of her point. She basically probably said a lot of very big words to him. He did not really understand them, and what he got was like they're coming to test test for cancer. Um and no one ever like disabused them of that idea. So why would they? They thought like and Deborah, especially, she was like, My mother died at 30, I'm almost 30. They're about to tell me I have cancer, and then like I'm gonna leave my kids that I'm also gonna die. And then I'm gonna die immediately. And so she was like terrified. So like they took this one test from everybody, and then she went back to be like, Hey, do I have what are the results? And they're like, Oh, would you like to give more blood samples? And she was like, Okay, cool. Um, so she met the that doctor who was in charge of all this, then uh all of this stuff, uh Victor's name. Makusick. Yeah, Victor Makuzik. And um he was he was kind of nuts because he like basically she asked him a bunch of questions, you know, like what happened to my mother, uh, also like am I going to die? Uh what did what has she actually done for medicine? And he sat her down and and just gave her like the fairy tale story of like how they cured polio and how she went to space and how all this other stuff. And like he thought he was being comforting, but again, she envisioned all of this stuff as like her actual mother being shot in the space.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah, we kidnapped her illnesses, took her out of your childhood home and tortured her, basically.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Is kind of the way that that she kind of uh heard all that internalized a lot of it. Um, and then at the end, he she was like asked some more questions, and he was like clearly like, I don't I don't have any more time to give it. So he handed her a book that he like had edited uh and that like helped write that was about like genetics and also included a lot of stuff about Gila, but just like autographed it and was like, This will tell you everything you need to know.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

No, all of these people need therapy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

A thousand percent. It did have a picture, like the the one kind of big picture that people kind of know that is Henrietta Lacks was in this book. Uh, but also like nobody knows how they got that picture because like the family didn't give it to them, they didn't give them consent to publish that picture, weirder, and like you know, it could have been they they think that maybe the doctor asked Henrietta to give them a picture that they put in the records, perhaps, but also it's just very strange because uh other than like in this file, nobody nobody had that picture.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Also, again, the 40s and 50s, it's not a time where you're like, Oh, I got doubles, I'll just bring you this snapshot from my party. Um don't even know the phrase I got doubles. Do you know that phrase?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

As in when you got them exposed to the phone, you got doubles. You got dupes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

When I was in high school, you'd like want people to get doubles so that if they took a really good picture of you, you could like trade. I got doubles. I got doubles. To me, that was like a flexible money. Yeah, no, it was a flex. I can always get the doubles.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah, but there's some people that were just like, Oh, I got dribbles. I don't think you could get tribbles. Yeah. So uh in that book, alongside of his like very elaborate uh autograph to be like, you're gonna want this autograph. Uh he also wrote a phone number to be like, hey, if you guys need to donate any more blood to science, why don't you just write, you know, give that phone number a call.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

If you're looking at get rid of anything in your body, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Forever.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Forever. So later when the author discussed this misunderstanding with Susan Chu, uh, Susan felt really bad about it, about the misunderstanding. Uh and she was like, Oh, I thought they knew the whole time. I thought because like the thing is about all of these scientists, especially the ones that are like the geneticists are are not in the field of like immortal cells, like cell culturing. So they're just like, oh, this thing is this this is famous. Everybody knows about this, including these people that we've hit it basically hit it from for a while. No, they don't. So they just assumed a base level of knowledge that these people didn't have.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Um that most people don't have.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Most people don't have. I mean, now people that listen to this podcast have it.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Sure, but did we have it before this? No. No.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

The work that that Makusick and Susan Shu did became pretty famous, and she was incredibly thankful for the family's donations. But then also she kind of ruined it by at the end being like, Oh hey, if you see them again, just let them know that if they want to donate some more blood, uh, we have better technology, so we'd learn even more. But it it's like this this whole thing, again, it was important that they got this genome so that they could kind of figure out all this other stuff so that the whatever they could sort the cell cultures out. But these scientists were writing papers, becoming they're they're like have a lot more notoriety, some people becoming famous. It also saved a bunch of money uh that of these companies that were having, you know, doing science better and and whatever. Uh, and they got it by by either by inadvertently misleading the family again, you know, like collecting these samples kind of under false pretenses. Whether they knew it or not, it was still like that's what happened. And then now they're on top of all that, they're like, Oh, and do you want to give us more of your samples that we have misused and and and kind of like profited off of that you haven't got a a dime from? Yeah. Uh, even it just feels it just feels weird to me. As the family learned more and more about like what Gila was, what it was used for, how they took the initial samples, uh, the more they distrusted both the scientists and the doctors. They were just like, I don't know, you guys are everything feels pretty sus. So, full of it. As public interest grew in this phenomenon of Gila, more and more people reached out to the family for comment. So now that people knew who Henrietta Laxe was, they're now like reporters start popping up out of out of nowhere to be like, tell me tell me more about this lady. And they're like, we don't know that much more than you do at this point. This is the the reporter I was talking about before. His name was Michael Rogers. Uh he was working for Rolling Stones, uh, and he was coming in to do do an article on on uh Gila and Henrietta Lax. So uh as Rogers asked them about their their mother, he realized how little the family truly knew about Gila and about the science being done. So he started providing as much information as he could, you know, other articles that were written. He'd also just kind of tell them what he knew.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yeah, he's like, I've been researching, I can explain what I can explain.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

And so when the family first learned about the concept of Gila, most of them, uh, other than the Deb was pretty shook up just generally, but everyone else was um really didn't didn't kind of mind. They were like, Oh, well, as long as they're doing good stuff with it, it's it's it's fine. I mean, I wish we would have known. Yeah, but it's fine, it's fine. After uh Roger, the Rogers article was released, uh, the family kind of first realized that the there was like a massive multi-million dollar industry built around like creating you know, uh manufacturing or cells and stuff and they couldn't afford to go into the doctor. So uh the sons were were pretty outraged and believed that they owed were owed a cut of you know this since it did come from their mother. So they started creating hand handouts of flyers saying that John Hopkins owed them millions of dollars and passing them out to as many people as they could. Um they were thinking of suing John Hopkins in order to get what they they were do, but because George Guy had basically given away most of the samples and never actually patented the cells, John Hopkins didn't make that much money from Gila. Um the massive-just mad at the wrong people. Yeah, the massive, massive factories uh that were reproducing it for a profit definitely did. Um and the debate over like ownership of genetic material was still very much in his infancy. So at that time, that lawsuit would have been pretty difficult. But if they had known more about the the topic or had the money to hire a real lawyer, right lawyer, yeah, probably would have had a a case for like a pretty big breach in privacy made by Victor McHusick in his lab because they they basically like uh did the genetic screening and then printed out like Henrietta's name and their their kids and their full genome.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Which like back then there was no HIPAA, but if if they had done that today, that would have been really it would have been a it like a $250,000 fine and a 10 years in prison.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Uh but they were just like, look what we figured out, and uh, you know. So uh different, but they still like even though the the actual HIPAA lot the HIPAA wasn't really created in two until 2006, which I didn't know. Definitely didn't know that. It's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Definitely didn't know that. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

And then another one in 2008 that basically says that like you can't uh discriminate like hiring practices based on genetic like makeup. So like if somebody's dying or something, maybe, but I also that, but I also think various syndromes or things like that, or like I don't think you can uh be like I'm not I'm firing you because I found out that you have this condition or whatever. Um so that's like the you know, giving out genetic information uh is becoming uh not good.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

And uh again, if you feel like you have to hide something, you probably shouldn't be doing it.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, probably shouldn't be doing it. Um so legal precedent was finally being made on the subject of uh like the idea of ownership over your your own genetic material. Uh this time all the way out in California with a man named John Moore. A couple of differences. One, he was a white man. Uh two, a white man, he knew all about the doctor using his cells and what they were doing with it. Uh, and he actually had money to hire a lawyer.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Huge differences. A lot of a lot of differences there.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Because the the Lax family, like, it's just now sort of figuring it out, and they're mad, but they haven't had time to like understand the scope of what's going on. And I think like ah if you were just learning about it, it'd be really hard to fully understand how massive this was.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

I just want to keep reiterating, they're learning about this before the internet.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

So they cannot just say, I learned these keywords, I learned this kind of fact, I'm gonna look up the Wikipedia and get a lay of the land.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

It's like they're flipping through a Dewey decimal system.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Maybe go to the library and maybe find something. Yeah. If the librarian was being helpful, like they truly are just listening to rumors and like things that people tell them when they're in a moment of emotional. Like when you hear stats or facts when you're emotionally charged, you absorb it less. Like you're and these people, this is obviously emotional for them. It's their friggin' mother. So it's like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Tough.

unknown 39:49

Tough.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

I'm mad, but I'm also sleepy. It's confusing.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

It's pretty, yeah, pretty confusing. Um okay, so John Moore. John Moore, uh, it was the mid-1970s. Uh, this he was a man working as a surveyor on the Alaska pipeline, uh, and he went to the doctor. Uh, his gums were bleeding, his belly was swollen, and he he had bruises covering his entire body. Um apparently, uh, it turns out he had a very rare type of cancer called hairy cell leukemia, um, a cancer of the spleen where the body is producing malignant blood cells and filling the man's spleen until it bulged near to bursting.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

So Moore eventually made it to UCLA uh where he met a doctor named David Gold. Gold immediately recommended that his spleen be removed. Moore agreed and signed a consent form allowing the hospital to dispose of any severed tissue or or member by cremation. Uh they did not do that, however.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

They kept that big old spleen, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

They sure did. So a nor a normal spleen weighs less than a pound. Uh any idea on how how much uh John Moore's spleen weighed? It normally weighs one pound. Like less than a pound. Nine twenty-two pounds.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

No, that's a lot of spleen. That's triplets.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

It's a lot of spleen. It's triplets. So after the surgery, Moore went back to his life.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Especially considering you can live without your spleen. Yeah. That's so big.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Big. Uh which makes sense why I was like, Billy.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

That weighs more than Frankie does now.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Our one-year-old child.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah. Big.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

She's not small.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

No. No. That's crazy. That makes sense of the the bulged belly. Like I was like, why is the belly bulging? And I was like, big spleen. Big big spleen.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Because it's got a Frankie spleen.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

So after the surgery, Moore went back to his life. He eventually moved to Seattle, becoming an oyster salesman. Good for him. He was doing all right. So uh every few months though, he would fly back to LA to do a few, do more follow-up exams with gold. At first, Moore thought they were just like routine checkups to make sure that the cancer didn't come back. But then after like a couple of years of going back and forth from Seattle to LA, Moore began to wonder why he couldn't just do these follow-ups a little closer to home.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Yeah, that's a big trick.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

So when Moore brought up the idea, the doctor immediately offered to pay for his flights and put him up in a hotel room at like a fancy hotel. Which is suspicious.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Um obsessed with me?

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Like pretty obsessed, yeah. And but why? Very good question. So during these one of these routine follow-ups in 1983, seven years after his surgery, he received a new odd consent form. So the form asked if he was willing to give UCLA all rights to a cell line created from his blood slash bone marrow obtained during these visits. Because he was giving samples of like blood, bone marrow, and semen every single time he went. What was the semen for? I re I don't know, red herring, maybe? Personal use? I don't know. Um but uh so not at first not wanting to rock the boat in case the doctor would like refuse care after that, he circled yes on the consent form. But then the next visit came around uh and he received the same consent form. So he asked Gold directly if any of the work that they were doing with him had commercial value. Like, hey, what's like why am I signing this con consent form?

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Which I would never know to ask that. Right. I would never and this conversation, because I am a selfish person, in my brain I was like, I wonder where my elbow is. Like, I wonder what they did with those bones. Yeah. Have you ever had anything removed?

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Um tonsils, adenoids? Sure. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

I just remember being like, I wonder where those went.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah, because you grew some bonus bone.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

I did. They took that too. Yeah. Are you in a textbook? I I thought I was in a textbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in a PowerPoint lecture. Okay. That happens every semester. Okay, yeah. Maybe it'll be in a book eventually. Yeah, we'll see. But I grew a little marble. They took that too. Yeah, they took that. And neither I don't think did they ask me if I wanted to keep it? But again, I just sign things. Yeah, right. So I don't know. But what are they doing with it, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Make a little figurine? Probably dying it's a plancillo. After asking kind of directly, uh Does it have commercial value? It does have commercial value. The the doctor uh said no and then kind of evaded the question. So uh even even more suspicious, Moore circled no this time on the consent form. Uh and then after the appointment, Moore went home and later that day he received multiple calls from the doctor telling him that he would need to come back and fix the consent form. Because he clearly made a mistake. He clearly made a mess. Clearly made a mistake. And uh Moore was like, I'm too busy. I gotta go fly back to Seattle, so that's a no. A few days later, the same form showed up uh in his mail at his house with a little like post-it note on it that was like, circle here where it says yes, this is where he wanted you to sign. Which is like thou doth, you know, you made a mistake too much. But it's okay. It's okay. We have your back. So Moore ignored the form, and then a few weeks later, he got a very angry letter from the doctor that was basically like, Hey, quit jerking me around. Grand a dang form that I having bodily autonomy.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

What does that mean? I want my stuff, and my stuff I mean your giant's blank.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

So uh Moore had had enough at this point and decided to hire a lawyer who quickly learned something very interesting. It turns out the doctor had spent the last seven years developing developing and marketing a cell line. He called Mo. Mo. Mo. Moore. Uh I guess after Moore. But apparently, uh uh Moore was not a big fan of being turned into just Mo. He was like, totally feels very dehumanizing, and I'm very angry about this as a concept, which I agree. I get it. Yeah. So a few weeks before Gold had given Moore the first of the new consent form, he had secretly filed a patent on Moore cells uh and some very valuable proteins that those cells produced. So while retaining the rights to Moore cells, the doctor had entered into an agreement with a biotech company giving him stocks and financing worth more than $3.5 million to commercially develop and scientifically investigate the cell line. So the commercial value of that cell line was estimated, like the just the you know, going on Shark Tank, your valuation, three billion dollars. In the eight in the like eighties? The eighties, yeah. Or like late 70s.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

I thought you said 1983.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Uh no, you're right. Yeah, in the 80s. Um so before 1980, bio biological products were not considered patentable. Like just, you know, you know, and it's the cell lines, like genetically modified things, not patentable. The Supreme Court ruled in a case called Diamond V uh Cherobarti, I think. Car Cerabarti. Uh a general electric scientist had filed for a patent for a bacteria he developed designed to consume oil and help with industrial spills.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

That's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Mm-hmm. Um, so his patent was denied because at the time no living organism could be patented. So, however, Chakrabarty's lawyers stated that since the bacteria were not naturally occurring and would not exist without Chakrabarty's in in intervention, they should be able to patent it as his own invention. So eventually the Supreme Court agreed. This case was actually kind of huge for scientists just everywhere because it opened up the ability to patent things like genetically engineered plants and animals, and also cell lines like immortal cell lines.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

And square watermelons.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

And square watermelons, yes. Or watermelons in the shape of frankincense.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Is that a thing?

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Is that a what?

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Yeah, apparently, okay. So apparently you didn't hear this conversation that Michelle and I had during the Knicks game, but uh, you can grow zucchini in or pumpkins or anything inside of a mold.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Uh oh, I did hear you making jokes about her hair and I got confused. And I was sleeping and lounged.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Uh you can you can grow it inside a little, you know, the negative of a Frankenstein face, and then you'll have a pumpkin that looks like Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Oh, but not a watermelon.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Oh, you could probably do a watermelon too. Or cucumbers.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Probably, but do we know?

SPEAKER_01 48:21

We don't know. We can find out.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Let's do it. Summertime and experiment. I think that's when watermelons grow.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

I don't know. But it's time for science. Watermelon science. So uh most cell lines not actually worth patenting. Uh Moore's, however, were pretty exceptional, you know, worth three billion dollars. Yeah, sounds like it. Uh they produced rare proteins used to help treat infections as well as cancer.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Again, something he would probably be willing to help with if they were like, hey, this is helping people, but you gotta compensate.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

You gotta compensate it. And like you don't even have to give them all of the money. No, just give them just a little something. Yeah, you're taking parts of their body. Come on, what are we doing here? So uh if you've got three billion dollars, it means you have a you could have a line item. Uh cut off the slice, just get some do a little surgery on on that budget. Good amount of money. And then, you know, give them give give them a little bit, you know? Um the apparently his his cells also had a rare virus that was a distant cousin to the HIV virus, and scientists were hoping to use the weaker form to help create a vaccine and cure therapy.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Great reason to use them. Just again, yeah, ask.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

And quit being sus about it. Because he likes being sneaky and patenting something that's sort of yours, but not really yours. Like, yeah. Three equal parts here. So if Moore had known how valuable his cells were, uh, he could have approached one of these pharmaceutical companies and made a deal to provide samples himself, and they would have paid large sums of money for that ability to do that. So now that Gold had patented his cells, however, it became much more difficult. There was a man uh named Ted Slavin who had done a very similar thing a few years earlier. He was uh like a hemophiliac, he like you know, uh we would get caught. He can't stop bleeding. Um and required very fruit frequent blood transfusions because at the time that was how they treated it, it was just by giving you blood. Put more in there, yeah, and that that had uh the binding agents just in it. Um, however, they also were not that great at testing the blood for like sexually transmitted diseases. So uh he got hepatitis B a lot. Oh, a lot of hepatitis B. This guy.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

I didn't know you could get that in a quantity. I thought you just had to have it.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Uh but apparently he kept like getting it and then kind of getting over it for the most part, getting it in, and then like getting another dose of more Wow, yeah. So not great. Um eventually uh a hepatitis antigen test was created, and a doctor tested Slavin's blood and found just off the charts amount of like hep B antibodies. Just a wild amount of like it just does did not make sense how many antibodies he had. So his doctor, instead of hiding that information and profiting off of it himself, actually told Slavin that his blood would be very valuable to drug companies. So Slavin approached a few of these companies, set up a deal to sell a steady supply of blood uh for their testing and vaccine development. He also partnered with a scientist trying to cure hepatitis, offering free use of his blood and cells to help develop a cure that eventually did lead to a hepatitis vaccine.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

Frankie just got her hepatitis vaccine. Yeah. Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Ted? Ted? Ted Slavin. So uh Slavin realized he probably wasn't the only person to have valuable like blood or other, you know, uh genetic material. So he sought out other people with similar conditions, eventually forming a company called Essential Bio Biologicals. All with like people that had, you know, interesting cell value. So um if it wasn't for Gold's patent, Moore could have also set up a similar deal with the pharmaceuticals company. It's crazy that you can patent organic material that isn't your and like back then there were no laws or even standards that meant that you had to like inform the person who like uh who the cells belong to, which is kind of nuts. So uh that's that's about to change, sort of. Moore had only one real option. Uh he had to take the doctor and UCLA to court uh for deceiving him and using his body in research without his consent. He also claimed property rates over his tissue and sued gold for stealing them, becoming the first person to stake a legal claim over his own tissues and sue for profits and damages. Um the first judge overseeing Moore's case eventually threw out the case saying uh that, you know, like he didn't own the property, he discarded it, it was not this this is he had no no leg to stand on. The doctor or the the judge actually cited the fact that the GELA cells that like nobody had come forward to claim money, monetary remuneration for the GELA cells. He was like, well, if they don't want money, it's clear that people don't need money, don't need money and and like uh you know medical advances to happen.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

So not at all that they didn't know they had the cells and then exactly and didn't know they were valuable, money from them.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Yeah, so Moore appealed uh multiple times, and then in 1988, a California Court of Appeals ruled in his favor. Gold then appealed again, and then he won, and it went kind of back and forth until it went all the way up to the Supreme Court of California. Uh the court said that no matter how the but this this sucks. And I do think that more uh uh more rulings have come out since then, but um the the California Supreme Court was the final kind of say on it, and they ruled that no matter how the biological material was obtained, whether it was like with consent or not, once they like if he discarded it, if he left it at the hospital and he didn't take it with him, then it was no longer his property.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

So when you give or have material taken according to this court, you should be like, Okay, do you are you done testing? Because I want it back.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

I that that's mine. I want the goo. I want the whatever the goo, whatever goo you came out of my body. The thing that I I think is crazy in this case is that like he signed a form that's that gave them permission to dispose of it by incineration. Like it feels like it's very clear that's like that's what I told you you could do. I didn't tell you you could take it and then you know do wacky science.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

He literally says get rid of it when you when I'm done, when you're done helping me, specifically.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

And then it's it's it is a thing that will be destroyed. Uh, but they were like, no, it's not. And the the so they ruled it like once it was out of once you left it, it was it was kind of officially waste, and the doctors could uh choose to turn your discarded matter into treasure if they wanted to. Um and it was only the like work of the scientists that made it valuable. So the court did rule in Moore's favor on the grounds of lack of informed consent and a breach breach of fiduciary duty and violating patient trust. Okay. So uh he did not receive any profits from like share profits from this big deal that was being made over his cell line. Um but the courts did make a requirement that doctors needed to disclose any financial interest or biological matter to allow them to make informed choice, uh informed choices on whether or not to allow the use of their so it didn't kind of move the needle a little bit. But again, it just lets it's it's a slow. Also, you know, the there are three cases now that have that have paid out in favor of the lax like estate. Um, but all of them were settled outside of court. So there is something about this case that I think is important because they took it all the way to trial and then to appeal to push it all the way up and took it up, but it's there. Yeah, judicial precedent was made here, even though like it's not what we what we could have wanted, but it is like uh moving the needle further.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Uh and it and it probably having any kind of precedent or law might make a doctor or researcher or scientist less inclined to be like, I'll just do whatever I want. Yeah. Because no one's paying attention to me.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Like, yeah, and it it like uh kind of awakens some doctors' understanding of like uh the that the that it is a gray area as opposed to just very cut and dry. Um I was talking to Sarah and and she was like, I think uh uh that like kids in that are going to medical school should probably read this book. And I was we were talking about how it would be a really good introduction into the just the idea of um whether or not like you should have autonomy over the the like how your body is used.

SPEAKER_02 57:05

Yeah, and I think that like patients being people is something that like not obviously I can't speak for the medical field, and a lot of people get into it to be altruistic and to help people, but there are people that get into it just because their mind is scientific, they want to make advances, they want to do research, they want to be recognized, they want to make money. Like, there are people who are in it to do the science of it, and because they look at the body as like a car they can be the mechanic of.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

And I do think that it's helpful to acknowledge that there's they're people, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

And like the you know, there are a lot of doctors that like kind of have to, they they form detachment because it's it's hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Right, it's also emotional to be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

Yeah, but it's also I I think we've all seen scrubs, I mean. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

We get it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 57:57

I think that uh the the stickiest part of this is because just just like the the the when the family first learned, like before they learned about the money of it all, the massive like industry of it. So it's like emotionally confusing. Then it's just like ah man, this feels weird and bad, but also like if it if she if you're if it helped all these people, she probably would like knowing that if she knew. But the the ca the fact that our society just has such connection to like vast amounts of wealth being created off of you know pharmaceutical testing and medical testing and all of this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

And the fact that her family can't afford and aren't provided good health care.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Yeah, and like they had a hard life. Yeah, and they they're like if they had had just any piece of some of this, it would have been let's I think I'm safe to say more than one person owns a boat because of these cells. Oh yes, many boats.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

And they can't go to the doctor.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

And they can't go to the doctor.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

The boat ratio It's way too high. It's too disparate, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Way too high. And one of the things in the this court case, they were like, we uh we feel as if you know uh Mr. Moore should have you know ownership over his his but if we ruled that way, then it would take away the financial incentive for people to do research and therefore like limit the ability to like make medical advancements. And I'm less just like, can't we like can't we do both? Like can't we can't we uh like find a way to uh you know incentivize people to do this research and then not uh not need it to purely be like rabbit capitalism? Like I don't know, it's gross.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

We're gonna solve it, you guys. Yeah, we're gonna fix it, we're gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Um yeah, so this is this is a a bit short. It's not as short as I thought it was gonna be, but it is it never is. It is it is a shorter episode. Um, but I think that's where we're gonna leave it for uh for tonight slash today to meet. Meet after dark, it's almost midnight. Oh dear God. Uh but uh next week we're we're gonna go ahead and wrap this whole thing up, put a bow on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

And then then on Tamil's topic. Yeah. You got any teasers?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:09

I don't the one big hint I feel like I could give would ruin it. Um, I will say that uh the book that I'm reading, I have the Kindle and the audiobook because that's what I like to do. I like to listen and then go back. Um the reader has a very intense Irish brogue, and I'm ha I'm struggling a little with paying attention to this. Because it's not even so much that he has a brogue, it's that he's like trying to narrate it in this folksy way, and it's like a very serious uh topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Um so it's not about the lucky chance guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

No, I'll just spoil it because I I wanna uh so it's about the potato famine. Got it. And I learned today that for a brief period there was something called the Potato Triumvirant. Oh, which was three that is an intense thing trying to solve the famine, and they named them the potato triumvirant, and they were not successful, but I love that as a phrase. Yeah. And it's a very interesting story, and it's um it's not so much like the book. The reason I kind of got interested in the topic was the book came out, and the descriptor of the book was like, Yes, we all kind of are familiar with the the concept of the famine, but this is really dealing with how England um helped and didn't help, and why they did what they did, and why some of it was financially manipulative against the Irish, it's less like a history and more like how did this unfold?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Well, and it's less like a freak of freak of nature thing happening where like because it feels like you know the dust bowl, which the dust bowl uh happened because of money and and bad stuff too. Planting enough trees and not yeah, not not uh crop rotation, crop rotation, but like I like I think because I I've learned a little bit about this book while you've been been talking about it, and it's also just kind of popped up in the in my like you know the zeitgeist lately, but um it's it's less a a thing that it's just like oh all of the there was a sickness of the potatoes, but it it was because the potatoes were the only thing that the the British Well yeah, if you literally only have one thing to eat and then that thing is gone, yeah, it's a problem. Yeah, um the all of the other food was being shipped out and sold.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Yeah, yeah. Okay, spoiler. Um but I won't be doing an Irish brogue because I'm very bad at it for the episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

Do you want to do a Boston brogue? And fucking maybe kid. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

It's not a brogue when it's fucking Boston kid, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. Okay. Uh fucking whatever. Whatever, kid. Uh yeah. So that'll be after this. But one more episode of Henrietta.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

And to our new listeners, of which there are some, welcome. Thank you for coming. Yeah. Go back, experience other series. Uh, listen to us when we were slightly less sleepy, but also listen to us now. Uh, write a review. If if you want to. Learn about bananas if you want. If every new listener, I've said this before, I say it again. If every new listener that we acquired over the past month left us a review, it would literally change our lives. Um, so think about that. If you want, we would appreciate it. If not, I get it. I uh I am also a person who says, I'm gonna get to that. And then I don't. But um, either way, thank you guys for listening so much. We enjoy making the show for you, and we will talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

Talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Thanks for listening, and a big thanks to Carsi Bland for the theme music. You can follow the podcast everywhere at Eathe Rich Pod. You can email us your suggestions for future episodes at eatherich pod at gmail. You can follow me at thefunnywalsh, and you can follow Danny at DMoss315. See you next week.