Henrietta Lacks Episode Five: Get Ready Girl!

This week we are wrapping up the Henrietta Lacks Story! We will talk about the increased attention on the Lacks family including a BBC Documentary team, A con artist who called himself Doctor Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield, and Rebecca Skloot, the author of our source material. 

We will actually get into the trail of breadcrumbs that Skloot used to meet Deborah Lacks for the first time and then talk about there relationship as they uncover more and more about Henrietta's life together over a nearly 10 year long process to write "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" 

Scientists also discover what actually caused Henriettas Cancer in the first place and use that information to help create a HPV Vaccine. We talk about the attempt to create a Henrietta lacks Museum in Turner Station. 

Then we finish by discussing a movie based on the book, a new law recognizing Henrietta passed through congress, and an ongoing group of unjust enrichment lawsuits against some major biomedical companies who profited off of the manufacture of Hela cells over the years. 

This was a crazy story and we hope you enjoyed it!

Sources:

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

“Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act” by American Cancer Society Cancer action network(2014)

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks-IMDB page” Directed by George C. Wolfe (2017)

“What does the historic settlement won by Henrietta Lacks's family mean for others” by Meredith Wadman (2023)

“Novartis Settles with Henrietta Lacks' Estate over use of her cancercells to advance medicine” by Brian Witte Associated Press (2026)

“Henrietta Lacks: Family of woman whos cells were 'stolen' settles second lawsuit” by Max Matza (2026)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

But don't be ashamed if you get confused when you talk to your friends or you watch the news. They try to tell you where it all went wrong. Now you don't need to argue, you just sing this song. Rich people stack in the dick. Rich people with big fat chicks. Rich people to have in a bar. Rich people.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Hello everybody, and welcome to Yeet the Rich. I am Emily Walsh, and I am here with my co-host and husband, Danny Moss.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

Bongiorno. That's we ate Italian today.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I think that's the only reason I have it. As the rude children on my Instagram say when they don't like one of my jokes, that ain't it.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

That ain't it. Fair.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

That ain't it. It hurts a lot.

SPEAKER_05 1:01

Yeah, I bet. They're not being mean, mean, but it does cut you to the core.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Oh no, it's this ain't it.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

Oh, this ain't it. This ain't it. And I just say I don't know what it is, but this is not it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Our baby. It's been an hour. You're right. It just feels No, it feels targeted.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

She's targeting us.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

She's absolutely targeting us.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah. Okay, this is the third time.

SPEAKER_05 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

We're starting this episode. I think this is the time. I think we're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:39

This is gonna be the one. I think this is gonna be the one. I don't know where that that two-minute little blurb left.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

We didn't even start talking about the episode. We didn't even do nap talk. We didn't do beverage chat.

SPEAKER_05 1:50

I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

What are we doing?

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Nap talk is uh chaotic. Yeah, you know. No. She took a great nap, but it was only like 15 minutes long, and it could have could have been a long time.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Could have been better.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

Could have been better.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Could and you said 15, it was 50.

SPEAKER_05 2:05

Oh, well, yeah, I meant 50.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yeah.

unknown 2:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, right. But uh yeah, this is the third time. I don't think we're doing anything with the five minutes we recorded the first time, literally at 3 a.m. But we tried to record this episode at 3 a.m. Yeah, last week, and the second, like the second we were like, oh that everybody, she was like, well, yeah, and then she screamed from 3 a.m. to like five. It was awesome. Um, but yeah, so we uh we're trying this again. We're gonna wrap up this series.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

Yeah, here we go. This is the ending. I'm on my second coffee.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

You're on your third coffee.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

Uh that's right, that's right. No big, no big, no big.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Uh I've also had some coconut water today. So she's a hydrated queen.

SPEAKER_05 2:44

We were uh we were up a little late last night. A little bit, having big adventures.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Little bit.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

Uh a little bit. I don't know if we want to disclose the.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

I mean, you can't. I feel weird bragging about it. Oh, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

So uh, you know, no big deal. I just happened to be married with somebody that uh performed on the stage at Radio City Music Hall to a sold-out musical. Oh sold-out audience. It was insane. It was a wild, wild thing. Uh I was so excited to be there and watch. Uh Emily absolutely crushed it. It was very fun. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

It was very fun. I feel very uh lucky to have done it. I feel very fulfilled by it, and I feel very tired.

SPEAKER_05 3:23

Yeah, it's part of the reason why um, you know, uh uh with all of these other things that have been happening with Frankie deciding that she needed new teeth and she needed them immediately. So bad new teeth. But we've also been prepping for this show for uh a little while, so it it it took a lot out of us. Yeah. By we, I mean mostly Emily, because uh I I just was there giving thumbs up and you were the other one. I was the other one giving back ribs, giving back ribs, getting coconut waters.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, but uh yeah, I am excited to wrap this series up. I'm excited to get started with my series.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So let's go, man.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

Yeah, yeah. I guess we should get right right on into it. Two coffees, two naps, yeah, and then we're ready to go. I full disclosure, uh, this probably didn't need to be a five episode series. I um reports, but we're gonna wrap it up.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

So let's wrap it up then. And next week we will get into something else.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

Something else, but something exciting. Um, okay, so last week we talked about some rumors around John Hopkins. We talked about kind of the darker side of uh the black community's fears about night doctors and scientific testing, going all the way back to some like slave owners uh doing some real spooky stuff. Uh that is really awful. Nothing good, nothing good. Nothing good there. Um we also talked about the beginning of the debate around ownership of genetic material and cellular cultures. So biological matter began being patentable, and so that kind of opened a whole thing. It does feel spooky. Um and uh yeah, we also discussed John Moore who and his 22-pound spleen.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yes, and his doctor kept demanding he come back to another screening.

SPEAKER_05 5:08

Uh yeah, yeah. He was er yeah, because he was living in like Utah or Seattle, Seattle, Seattle. You're right, you're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Well, well, look at me.

SPEAKER_05 5:16

Um critical listener. There he is. Uh yeah, so that was great. And uh the doctor was also enriching himself and becoming like having multimillion dollar deals.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Because that's the thing, and somebody actually commented on our I think first episode on YouTube and was like, I'm a medical student, like I don't see the problem. And I'm like, I see where you don't see the problem with the basic premise. But she also the commenter did say as long as they get consent, which we've talked a lot about, she didn't give consent to this.

SPEAKER_05 5:44

And they she would the the poster was talking about like the standard at the time, which yes, but also like yeah, but also I don't think that anybody who holds that opinion has a full understanding of this aspect of it, of the like companies born out of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Because I didn't know even knowing what the book was about, knowing the concept of it, being like, oh, you know, these cells, she didn't give consent. This is the part that's really to me, the podcast aspect of what we're talking about, like creating these businesses without the consent or participation of the people who contributed their body matter is horrible.

SPEAKER_05 6:17

Yeah, and and you know, it's like we talked a few episodes ago of being like you should go back and just like you know, it's like the sources, like we were like, nobody's ever gonna do that, but uh they should, you know, they should. Yeah. Um, it's just I think that this case in particular, it's just so starkly like uh that's pretty messed up because it because of how big and how important and how massive scale the the manufacturing of of her cells still is, the fact that like you know, her family was still living without being able to pay for healthcare is nuts.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Yeah, that's really um yeah, compensate people.

SPEAKER_05 6:54

Yeah, or crazy, crazy thought, pay them for stuff. It could be great. Like if you're like, oh man, this amount of money feels too good to be true, it probably means you have enough money to give the people that uh you know nobody needs three boats. Nobody needs three boats.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

You can convince me you need two. Yeah, they have different uses. That's right. You cannot convince me you need three. That no unless one is a kayak.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

Yeah, well, you can have a canoe if you want.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

That'll sign if you do a little bit of man-powered boats. You can have as many as you want.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

That's right. If you're the man. Yeah, if you're the man. Or a woman or a person. How do you feel about sailboats? Too many sailboats? Uh that's wind powered.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

But sailboats are immensely expensive to upkeep.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

Yeah. True. I mean, most boats are that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

You don't need three. That's what I'm doing. If you want a sailboat and a powerboat, those are your two boats.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

Those are your two boats. There you go. That's a boat law. You know, you can have a couple of dinghies. Those are just for fun. Those don't count. Those don't count. Dinghies are not boats. They float. Yeah. They're not ships.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Ships? But sailboats are not ships. Welcome to nautical talk. They don't know what they're talking about. I keep seeing this meme and I really agree with it. And it was like, the power problem with liberals is none of us have friends with boats.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Like we don't have the wealth. And the only people we do know with boats that we've gotten on the boat has been people who were like, my parents own the boat. Like the Republican, they own the boat. I don't own the boat. And it's like, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 8:19

Yeah. You did um get invited onto a lot of boats at that like towns, you know, oh yeah, but those people do not vote the way we do.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

They certainly do not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

Uh we do have friends with pools, so I think that's the like the lower. Same good step, but it's it's it's a tear down. Yeah. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Yeah. Um so if you're cool and you have a boat, let us know.

SPEAKER_05 8:44

Let us know. We can talk about, you know, why owning one more boat would probably be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Uh they had two. Right, that's what I'm saying. I just assumed that our friend with the boat already had two. Wow. Yeah. Um, okay, so after after talking about this doctor who was, you know, sneakily uh harvesting samples from uh from this guy for like seven years, we talked about the years-long legal fight over the ownership of that cell line. Eventually, the court ruled that once discarded, a patient no longer has any ownership over uh that matter. However, they did say that doctors had the responsibility to disclose any financial upside.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

So uh so even a sample that they the doctor removed for science and said they were gonna discard, but if they used it for money.

SPEAKER_05 9:39

This that law that was okay. Said it was okay. Wow. And then afterwards that lawsuit was basically like, hey.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

So what are we supposed to do? Bring Tupperware containers for a doctor's approach, give it all the data.

SPEAKER_05 9:49

Excuse me. I I brought my vacuum sealer. I would like it.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Give me whatever you pull out of my body.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

Yeah, I actually have my personal supply for amaldehyde. I brought it along with me.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

I've got a creepy jar to store that in. Yeah, exactly. Please give me my teeth. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

Thank you so much. Uh or give me a million dollars right now.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, either way, it's fine.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

But the Where's my elbow?

SPEAKER_05 10:10

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

We don't. We'll never know.

SPEAKER_05 10:12

Yeah, maybe it's maybe your elbow is out there growing more bone all the time.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

It was it it grew some bone.

SPEAKER_05 10:19

It did grow some bone. Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Grew a marble they took out. I want that too. Yeah. Where's that?

SPEAKER_05 10:23

I don't know. It's probably cool. But uh there are so this actual the the uh and we'll get into it a little at the end of this episode, but the um they there are a lot of lawsuits going on right now uh where the estate of Henrietta Lax is suing various pharmaceutical companies that their business model is based around using uh HELA cells, and they've been they've been walking away with some pretty big settlements. I mean they uh they are completely undisclosed, but I can only assume that they are at least reasonable enough that they didn't they were like this is good enough for us. We'll take this. Um But how the the tough thing about all that is is like I want them to get paid. I want them to get their money because they deserve some money. However, because it's a settlement, it it doesn't um create any new precedent. There's no justice of the city. There's no like we're not we're not actually fish fixing the bigger systemic issue.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Like we need to like paying off the most offended person with the most time and resources to fight the problem.

SPEAKER_05 11:23

And I don't think I don't think it should be their job to fix, you know, to to like go through the fight of making it to h you know, getting it all the way through all of the courts. Because once just like we saw with this case, it was like uh the the it finished one way and then they appealed it and it finished the other way and they appealed it again, and then it went all the way up to the California Supreme Court, and that takes years and years and years of money and money and money that you know they didn't they didn't have. I mean, now they have more, but um I like I think it's just a thing where it's like it kind of calls upon us as like citizens to actually if we hear somebody trying to make a law to help rectify this or like help make sense of this thing, because I think genetic material ownership, like cell lines, things like that, like the the fact that you can make so much money from genetic material is kind of like the internet, it's kind of like Facebook, it's kind of like social media where we it's moving and changing so fast that we don't know how too hard to legislate. The forefathers didn't write it into the thing, and and we now have to go back and and kind of work it in.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

And also the American justice system is based on like sue first.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

Yeah, yeah. It's and it's based on like share shareholder uh you know thing above like actual honest, you know, people and and justice and any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's uh one of our one of our uh one of our uh uh recurring soapboxes. Um what else? We also talked more about how the family was affected by learning about Henrietta's semi-immortality.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

I mean, I we ended the last episode. Uh I was ready for them to storm the gates. What are we doing? Yes. Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 12:59

Let's storm some gates. Okay, so uh our source, once more, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Laxe by Rebecca Sklut, 2010.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

And this is the last episode of the series. No matter where we are in 90 minutes, we're gonna stop.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

I also uh read a bunch of articles about the lawsuits that uh are ongoing that I'm I'm gonna put in the show notes, but uh I'm not gonna list them all here. Most of them are like Henrietta Lax's relatives, get money. Good. So yeah, colon, good. Um, okay, so now that Henrietta's name is out, uh, more and more articles and books begin exploring Gila and the woman behind the cells. So very few of these reporters and writers discuss any of their writing with the actual family uh of Henrietta. Uh and either they don't know about them, they don't know that they still exist, like that it's like 50 years later, so the there is an assumption that like, you know, that they just don't have a connection with this woman anymore. Uh, or uh they just don't really care as much about the human aspect. Because a lot of the a lot of the books are much more like what the science was doing, like based around the you know, the use of the Gila cells for polio and all that.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Well, because it's brought a lot of advancements. So they're talking about the advancements.

SPEAKER_05 14:16

And that's what they, you know, that's what they uh uh the people that know most about Gila cells are also the people most interested in uh like scientific testing. Benefiting from unscientifically. Because the the the average person uh until like now, until like we've started this has started kind of coming into pop culture in a way. Uh most people that know about Gila come from it from a science background. So it kind of makes sense, but it's also like there's a lot of stuff that make it into these books that later the the family's like, how did you get those pictures? And you were clearly reading the medical records. We never gave you access to those medical records. How did you get in there? Uh, and either that like again, it's like HIPAA didn't exist, and and like there was general sense of ethics around like you know, giving out uh patient information, but uh it was still very nebulous and none of it was on the road.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

It's like any type of thing you're trying to legislate or be the boss of. Yeah, we have all these assumptions that people just do the quote unquote right thing. Sure. That there isn't a law, a rule in place, and also again, it's moving so fast that they can't write these laws and create these rules until they're like, wait a second. Like the reason there's a sign that says don't pee in the pool is because enough people pee in the pool. Somebody pee in the pool. Somebody put that toe to the bottom.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

In the bathtub, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah, everybody assumed nobody would ever do that, and then somebody did, and they were like, Well, here's the sign.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

Here's the sign.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Stop stop putting pee in our ool.

SPEAKER_05 15:40

Yeah, no pee in the ool, please. And it and that's uh, you know, what we're doing for we need that sign for genetic testing, the pee in the ool sign.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Did you ever um as a kid, did you ever hear the like I actually don't know if this is real and I constantly wonder about it? The purple, yeah, the dye in the pool that's gonna show if you peed in it.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Yeah, I don't know if that's real or not. Because I've never seen it. I've seen it, I feel like on there was like a movie or a TV. Okay, but not in person. You better have been in a pool and they're peeing. Constantly peeing in pools, you know. Are you nervous?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

But like people are, and babies and toddlers are like yeah, I feel like I would have.

SPEAKER_05 16:17

I mean, babies and toddlers toddlers totally are. There's no there's no stopping them.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Literally, those diapers don't work for them. Yeah. I'm just confused.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

I don't know. It gets it feels like a myth that somebody spread to anyone's experienced it, let me know.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Maybe it's a social experiment. Sometimes if I'm like a little high in a pool, I'm like, huh. I I'm not even thinking about peeing. I just literally am like, what if I peed a little bit and everyone saw it? Like, what if I like what if there's a spot of pee somewhere?

SPEAKER_05 16:42

And then you get so scared you pee your pants anyways. Yeah. It's like, oh dang it.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

It's something I think about more than I'd like.

SPEAKER_05 16:47

Yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

If I'm being nuts.

SPEAKER_05 16:51

In 1985, a book called A Conspiracy of Cells by Michael Gold was published. The book was about the efforts to stop HELA contamination uh of all of the other cellular cultures. The book quoted heavily from Henrietta's medical records, and it was inside that book that Deborah, Henrietta's daughter, learned the exact nature of her mother's cancer and like had kind of a more graphic stuff about how her mother passed away. Because she's like Deborah is is has been like ever since she found out that she was like semi-alive or like part of her was still alive, she's been really like digging into trying to learn more about her mother, right? Um, and like find out as much as she can. So she'll like read these books or read these articles, and then uh she just gets surprised with some really graphic, harsh stuff. So it's like kind of she wants to learn more about her mother, but she doesn't really like she's looking for like what her favorite color was and and like the things about her mother in these books as opposed to like how excruciating the last days of her life was. Yeah, and so like to come across that as one of your like primary sources early on was harsh.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I mean, anybody who's experienced loss, I'm sure if you were told like, hey, there's all these articles and books you might learn something about the person you lost, you're going to read them, yeah, and then you have to deal with the consequences of it.

SPEAKER_05 18:10

Well, and because this is like a medical journal and or a book, you know, that is medical and science-based, they like pretty graphically described the autopsy process. And it's just like, Oh, that's very upsetting. Yeah, yeah. So um that was uh that that was really rough for Deb. Not bad for Deborah. Um so after reading that that that part of the book, Deborah broke down for days, imagining all of the pain that her mother mother must have been in. Um Henrietta's sons up to this point had been pretty mad at like John Hopkins specifically. That's specifically where they were pointing their their kind of anger. Um, because that's where it all started. Yeah, it's where it all started, but they also were like, because it's as big as it is, surely John Hopkins made a lot of money from it.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Oh and uh you're right. You you were saying that they kind of benefited financially the least out of Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 19:01

The because they didn't patent anything, they gave away all the cells, you know, they uh clearly got a fair amount of rep from it all. Sure, some street pressure. So they didn't get nothing out of the whole thing, but the the Henrietta's sons didn't really like the the nuance of all of that was kind of be you know beyond their knowledge.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

So they're and also how would they know how again all of this is like pretty complicated. Yeah, I don't understand it right now. Um also like I I don't know their son specifically, but like it's really whenever we've had these conversations before we had a kid and people would not have time to pursue something or like they didn't really know or whatever, I would always think to myself, like, why aren't they more curious? Yeah, and now being a parent, and obviously there's so many things that can consume your yeah, right your mind. I'm not saying that this is like only if you have a kid, but just the mat the the amount of time that we have to just spend being like don't don't run down the stairs, don't like fall off.

SPEAKER_05 19:58

Oh, you're gonna be like, please stop trying to eat electricity.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

You lose a little part of your curiosity for a little while, you're just like, I gotta just stay alive. You gotta let some of that stuff go. Whatever position you're in that's consuming your brain space, I think sometimes you just get it's like why they talk about politics and like low information voters, because they don't have time. Like you don't have time, you don't have to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05 20:17

Well, I also like you know, uh I don't want to make this connection too strongly, but like if you're if you're having a hard time making ends meet, like that's that's the same deal. Like if you're constantly trying to think about how to make enough money to make it. That you don't have time or or money or ambition to to be like, oh, I I wonder how a clock would be like.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Let me go to the library and just like look up a steam. I think it's a lot of it. My frustration, I think, is the reason why I say it at all is I feel like a lot of people, like pundits and stuff, will talk about people who don't know things, yeah, and they kind of make it seem like it's it's will for willful ignorance. Like they're like, I don't want to know, I'm not curious. And it's like, no, we're trying to survive.

SPEAKER_05 20:58

Like and like all of you jokers were hired to to do the right thing so that they didn't have to think about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, you were supposed to figure this out so that they could just go to their jobs and go home and raise their family.

SPEAKER_05 21:11

Assume that you guys are all have their best interests at heart, even though clearly that's not the case.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

No, but we do have a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

So that'll put a turkey on every table. It's an AI turkey, though. So you can't really eat it.

SPEAKER_05 21:31

Uh so up to this point, the sons were pretty angry and like kind of like demanding stuff from you know, John Hopkins specifically and writing pamphlets talking about how John Hopkins owed them for so many pamphlets. A lot of pamphlets. Uh but up to that point, Deborah had always kind of been really um she'd been like, uh, I just want people to know that it's my mother. Like, uh, you know, I I want she's been doing good. Uh like the some people still think it's Helen Lane, some people still think it's, you know. All of these other pseudonyms. Uh, but I just want people to know that it's my mom. And appreciate who she was. And appreciate who she was. But after like reading this book and kind of hearing about how bad it was, she is now also furious. Uh and uh is now like really wanting to make sure that full credit is given, uh, and that like people know that she didn't donate the cells. Like it's it's a lot of that kind of like opened a bit of like she's always kind of been she's been very interested in this, but this is like now uh all of her spare time is kind of spent consumed. Yeah, consumed this. So okay. Um let's talk a little bit about uh some some some science stuff. We're gonna step away from the family a little bit. Uh so in 1984, a German virologist named uh Harold Zerhausen. Sure. Sure. Discovered a new strain of the human papillomavirus, HPV 18. So he believed that this new strain, along with HPV 16, caused cervical cancer. After testing it, it was discovered that these two strains of HPV would insert themselves into the chromosomes of the infected uh, you know, of the person, turning off uh the what's called the P53 tumor suppressor gene. Sure. Which apparently we got a gene that suppresses tumors. And if you turn it off, probably bad. Not so good.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Probably bad.

SPEAKER_05 23:32

So he requested a small sample of the original biopsy taken at John Hopkins, and he wanted to see if Henrietta cells contained either HPV 16 or HPV 18, uh, and wanted to make sure that they weren't contaminated in culture over the years. So he wanted like some of the original uh original sample, which he got somehow, I guess. Um so not only did those cells test positive for HPV 18, they were once again like super infected by multiple different, you know, sub-variations of HPV 18. She had it like she had it like six times or something like that. Um so I learned through all of this uh that there are more than 100 known strains of HPV, uh, 14 of them are uh wait, yeah, 14.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

That's what my doctor told me was 14.

SPEAKER_05 24:19

14 of which are confirmed to cause cervical cancer, uh anal or penile cancers.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 24:25

Yeah. So um today around 90% of sexually active adults become infected with at least one strain of HPV, which is, you know, great. Uh but again, a lot of them clear on their own. Your body Yeah, clear on their own. It it gets rid of it. But there are specific strains. And and 16 and 18 are uh particularly virulent and like dangerous as a as a thing. Um so uh Zurhausen and other scientists went on to use Hila to study HPV, discovering how and why it caused cancer, uh, and found a way to block its effects, creating the first HPV vaccine. Uh, this discovery would eventually earn Zerhausen a Nobel prize. Information, cell culturists would eventually learn about different viruses and chemicals that could be introduced in cultures to help create immortal cells in the lab. So this is one of the one of the ways that like a cell culture that you want to, you know, uh that is like from a natural that isn't self-replicating on its own in that way, they can get it to self-replicate by giving it, you know, a s a lot of this virus or or a number of other viruses. Um Henrietta's cells are still incredibly special. Uh it's very, very, very rare for a cell on its own to become immortal in the way that Henrietta's did. So this is it's like still very particularly special and like one specific, like uh so many things had to happen in order to make this make this happen. So kind of speaks to the the like fate of it all is uh is interesting. Uh yeah, so Zurhausen, you know, and HPV learning about it was uh like a really important step to dealing with cervical cancer, not dealing with it. But uh, you know, I was talking to Sarah last night and she was saying that like, you know, the the vaccine back then only uh affected the first two, so the the 16 and 18, but it is like uh increasing in number of of what it can actually cover.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

So I uh recently had this discussion with a doctor, my doctor, and she was saying that the vaccine only covers two uh of the cancer-causing ones out of 14 and two of the non-cancer counting causing ones out of the rest of the hundred.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

And I was like, why is that? And she was like, Science doesn't study women? Like she basically like alluded to that, and it was kind of she was like, we don't really and it but she uh I love this lady. We had a great conversation, she drew me a lot of dietary.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

Did you tell her about the podcast? Maybe she'd be a fan.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

I should have, maybe if I have to go back. But she um she told me one of the most upsetting things uh about all of this is um back when I was in my 20s, the HPV vaccine started getting more popular, but healthcare only covered it until you were 26.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

And I missed it somehow. I think maybe I turned 26 before, or maybe I didn't have healthcare. I didn't have healthcare for like a year or two because Obamacare didn't exist. I don't know. Whatever. I didn't I couldn't go to the doctor for a minute, I didn't get the vaccine. Then I was 27 and they were like, it's too late. You could still do it with money, but there was a period where I think maybe you couldn't even do it. Now it's offered to 45. I think you can always ask for it. Yeah. But the reason that healthcare made it age 26 is that some man at the vaccine company, I don't think this man, but a different man, said that women should get it by 26 because they should be with their last sexual partner by then.

SPEAKER_05 27:48

Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's pretty sexist and weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

And if there aren't, then they get to die. They get to get cervical cancer. Like, that's just like who uh Yeah, yeah. I love those like arbitrary things together by that.

SPEAKER_05 28:03

And that like probably didn't get resolved until the last like five years.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Also, all the other men there were like, Yep, sounds right to me. My wife was 25 when I married her. This seems great. Yeah. Uh HPV can affect everybody, get vaccinated.

SPEAKER_05 28:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

That's it.

SPEAKER_05 28:21

I mean, there's also like the the polio vaccine being so heavily focused on like on the kids, there's that aspect of it too, where they were just like, get it to the children first, and then like, you know, eventually everyone will be vaccinated. But all the people that are like, I could still get polio over here. If they're like, well, I don't know what to do. I didn't know about that. Yeah. I mean, I think eventually it did open up, but uh, because of the the epidemic of it all, they were like spending all of the resources. I think that kind of happens with I mean that happened with COVID.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

They were like everybody old and young and sick at first, which is what should happen. Right. But it is uh it takes a while to make to make them. But yeah, short version, get get vaccinated.

SPEAKER_05 29:01

Get vaccinated. And also again, let's just look back through those uh the reasons. Yeah. Oh, the thing that that was really um that really un irked me when you told me about this was that like the 26th thing is also has to do with insurance. No, they don't pay for like they won't pay for it.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Now I think I don't know what's happening now. That was that was 15 years ago, but that's what was happening. And so of course I'm not gonna spend six hundred dollars at the time on something that doesn't like you that again, a lot of HPV clears your body anyway. So it's like, Well, I don't have this money. That is rent at that time. That was more than what I was paying for rent in a month. Right. That was not money that I had to get a mix.

SPEAKER_05 29:45

Public safety thing of like you could just give them the vaccine too.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Yeah, and then less people will get it. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

Wouldn't that be cool?

SPEAKER_02 29:54

My doctor was also very intense, and she was like, at this point in America, cervical cancer shouldn't kill anyone. Like she was like, we have the resources, like this is very frustrating. And I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_05 30:05

Well, I wonder whether like so women under 26 could get it over not unless you pay for it out of pocket. But like, are they do they ensure any men getting this? Because it's like I understand that many, most men, other than the the ones that get penile and or anal cancer, yes, uh uh are unaffected, but like they're the carrier.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

I know that when you now I'm pretty sure that most medical offices do offer it when you're a parent to teenage boys to just be like, hey, then you can help stop spread it. And also you don't necessarily know your kid mustn't necessarily know their orientation at that age, but gay men can get um HPV, but it also I think what my doctor told me, but I guess not because that's penile cancer is happening to men. But I I thought she'd said that mostly just causes warts for gay men. So again, an adult might not be like, Let me go get this.

SPEAKER_05 30:59

Well, maybe it's it's still maybe I don't know enough about the the other forms of cancer formed by HP, but let us know, and we'll tell the world. And by the world I mean several thousand people. There you go. Um cool. Well, learning new things every day.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Every day. Some of them are bad. All of them are bad. Learn them together with us.

SPEAKER_05 31:21

And we just uh, you know, kind of grin through it all, and then it's fun. Fun.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Then you get an ice cream and you say, just a little treat. Just a little treat. Just need a little treat.

SPEAKER_05 31:32

Okay, so Gila was also used to study HIV. So normally HIV could only infect blood cells, but they inserted a specific DNA sequence from blood cells into Gila. They were just like, I'll just nook that in there. And then HIV was like, yeah, okay, I'll infect that. And then they because of how fast HIV or not HIV, uh Hila replicated, they would were able to study the virus at like a much faster scale than they were able to do.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Like you moved on to HIV or you having a time. I moved on to HIV. Okay, I'm sorry. I was just like listening to the stuff.

SPEAKER_05 32:04

I moved on to HIV. I uh put you know Zero transitions. Yeah, zero transitions in there. I was I was just getting right back into the no transitions, no crowd work. Just I did say we learn new things every day. Does that not count as a segue? You know what? You know, just we'll we'll roll back the tape later and check that out. But I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

I edit the video and cut out everything that makes me sound dumb.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Well, if anything makes me sound dumb to you, maybe cut that out. Nope, leave that in. Leave that in. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

What you were supposed to say was you never sound dumb.

SPEAKER_05 32:41

Well, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

And then I would have cut out your stuff for you.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Could you cut this out? And then I'll be like, Emily, you never sound dumb. So it's probably pretty easy because you don't have to put anything in. Oh boy. Okay. So uh we're talking about HIV now. Uh it's a different acronym. Different that is also really similar to what you're saying. You know, dangerous virus. Yeah. Um, so this one, HIV. Uh again, the the that virus affects blood cells. Sure. Uh HILA is not a blood cell, it's a you know, cervical cell, uh slash cancerous cervical cell. And so they tricked the virus into infecting Gila, and that allowed them to do a lot of studying of HIV very fast because you know, because it just kept replicating and they they kept tr testing possible like cures, possible antigen testing things, all of this stuff. So the the the viruses or sorry, the Gila cells that were infected with this virus actually became kind of a resource because they were able to collect the like antigens from it, allowing them to make a much more uh like accurate antigen test to make sure to see whether anybody had it. Uh um it helps, you know, the testing process made it a lot easier because of the they just had a ready source of antigens from from Gila. So that was good. Um we're doing another segue here, hard segue. Grinding those gears. Grinding the gears, yep. Uh so in 1996, a BBC producer named Adam Curtis began making a documentary about Henrietta Lax and the Gila cell line. Finally, someone was interested interested in the human side of the story. So they showed up in Baltimore with like a full production team, cameras, microphones, like an army of assistants just like rolled into uh, you know, this small section of Baltimore. Um at first, Deborah and the family were very excited that someone was finally taking interest in their mother and uh that the whole world would finally get to know the actual story behind it. Um so there's just hours and hours of footage directly with the family. Many of it, many of the filmed interviews were taken in front of the home house home house in front of the home house down in Clover, Virginia. Um so the the place where uh Henrietta like when Henrietta's dad was like, that's okay, I'm gonna drop you off with the family. I'm gonna leave you here with her with her grandfather. Um so it's a little strange because uh, you know, most of these people's lives uh was were lived in in Baltimore, but you know what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Need a nice visual, I guess. Yeah. Uh and Henrietta did go back and continue like working, you know, uh the tobacco fields periodically in the in the you know, through those years. But during the documentary filming, Henrietta was being recognized in Atlanta at Morehouse School of Medicine. A man named Roland Patilli Patillo. Yeah, I think that's right. A man named Roland Patillo, one of George Guy's only black students. Uh so George Guy was that the guy who's the guy the guy. Uh and uh Roman uh Patillo was uh really wanted to honor Henrietta's contribution to science. So he was like, you know, uh was at least had had some direct knowledge of like who uh Henrietta like I don't think she he was there for the the this like he's not that old, he's not old enough to have been there, but he did study under George Guy and and then from there kind of got got more actual direct knowledge. So on October 11th, 1996, he organized an annual Gila Cancer Control Symposium. So that's I I should have checked whether it's happening today. It has happened multiple multiple times, but he also petitioned Atlanta to name October 11th Henrietta Lacks Day and invited the family down to accept on her behalf.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

That's nice.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Yeah. So Deborah was so excited that her mother was finally going to be recognized and uh that the world was gonna learn about her. Um, the trip was a bit of a mixed bag, however. The family rode down to Atlanta in an RV that Patillo, which I think is kind of fun that he was just like, I rented you an RV to drive on down. Um and you know, I don't know when RVs were first uh I mean it's not we're talking 1996, so RVs have been around for a little bit. The BBC film crew that was uh was uh you know learning learning about them just followed them down to Atlanta and like filmed them on the road trip. So there's a lot of like road trip footage as well. Um we love a montage. Yeah. For the first time, the lax laxes were being treated as celebrities, so they're staying in uh like a fancy hotel. People were asking for all of their autographs.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Deborah gave us that to get their DNA somehow.

SPEAKER_05 37:31

I definitely uh the I feel like the family was like looking at them sideways.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Not not, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Not not.

SPEAKER_05 37:38

Not not. They're they very distrustful for good reason. For great reasons. Um so Deborah gave a speech, she talked about uh the surprise of the news, like learning that her mother was some part of her mother was still alive, saying that it was about time that the world knew who Henrietta Lax was, and uh then kind of uh ending her speech by talking directly to her mother and mother and telling her how much she loved her, missed her, and was proud of her, like very uh touching, very touching stuff. And she, you know, Deborah made a number of speeches over the years uh for her mother. Um I just I don't know, I think it's nice. Um so after making it back home, the BBC film crew went to Turner Station to talk to the extended Lax family. Uh there they met a woman named Courtney Speed, the owner of Speed's grocery. She just so happened to be the co-founder of the Turner Station Heritage Committee, and their mission was to bring attention to black people from Turner Station who had brought good things into the world.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

And she was like, oh, this is a big one. This is perfect.

SPEAKER_05 38:39

Um, so the the people that living in uh Turner Station up to this point that they had recognized were a former congressman who had become president of the NAACP, an astronaut, uh a man who had won several enemies as the voice of Elmo on Sesame Street from Turnstation. Um and now Henrietta Lacks.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

So, you know, am I there's a documentary about the Elmo voice man? Is it Bad Man?

SPEAKER_05 39:08

Maybe is it Batman or is it a what I said bad. Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

I don't know the flavor of Allegations of sexual impropriety with minors.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

So maybe dismissed due to the expiration of the Statue of Limitations. I don't love that. I didn't think we liked it.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

What else happened?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

The cosmic.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Oh, I forgot. Yeah, yeah. Not great. I bet they honored him before they found out about the allegations.

SPEAKER_05 39:55

Yeah, I think that's probably true.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

I'm sorry to do derail. I just always get a little spidey sense when I'm pretty sure. Is it this guy Kevin Kevin Clash?

SPEAKER_05 40:02

Kevin Clash. All right, where's Kevin Clash?

SPEAKER_02 40:04

He's not currently elmoing.

SPEAKER_05 40:15

Oh crud.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

It's the same guy. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. Yeah, same guy. Same guy. I looked it up. It's right here.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

Okay. Uh yeah, well, uh there you go. So there's a you know there's that. There's that as well as a as a piece of the piece of the story. Uh no, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Sorry to add a bummer to this bummer fucking sandwich.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Sorry, I keep bringing bummer fucking sandwiches to the to the table, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

That's all you've had on offer.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

Yeah. I need uh I need a less bummery of a sandwich.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Also, it seems like you have a lot of pages left, and it's been 42 minutes already.

SPEAKER_05 40:52

Okay. Um okay, let's uh let's uh we'll kick on through. No, it's okay. Um uh Courtney Speed and her other co-founders jumped uh at the news. So they wrote letters to Congress uh and the mayor's office demanding recognition of Henrietta Lacks' contribution to science. Pretty soon Turner Station Heritage Committee founded the Henrietta Lacks Health Museum Foundation uh with Courtney Speed as president. They planned events, they raised money, they made Henrietta Lacks pens and t-shirts uh with Henrietta's face on them. They began raising money uh to uh hopefully build a proper Henrietta Lacks Museum right there in Turner Station, uh, hoping to raise uh seven million dollars. Wow. Um, you know, I don't think they got all the at least early on, they definitely didn't get all the way there. But um one of their first goals was having a life-sized uh wax statue of Henrietta made that they were like very excited about this as a concept.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

First, be like, first of all, first thing, first things first, wax figure.

SPEAKER_05 41:54

Wax figure. I think start there. Yeah, I mean that one picture, very striking. So if you waxify that.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

I'm not saying don't make it. I'm just gonna be able to do it. Less expensive than a bronze statue.

SPEAKER_05 42:05

Fair, yeah, very fair. Um, so Deborah was not included in the board of the museum, uh, but was asked to come and speak at various events uh honoring her mother. At some point, someone suggested to Deborah that she donate Henrietta's Bible and the locks of her mother's hair and her sister's hair that Henry Deborah had in safekeeping. Uh they were like, oh, you should donate them to the museum because like what if your house burned down? They would be destroyed. Uh but this uh made Deborah so incredibly anxious.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

That makes me feel very strange. And like, first of all, we don't know, I don't know if Deborah has kids. Maybe she wants to keep it in the family or give it to a sibling or give it to whoever.

SPEAKER_05 42:44

These are the only pieces of her mother's. But that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Like, even if she was gonna donate them, ask her to leave them when she passes. Right. Be like, hey, would you put it in your I don't know how you asked that in a polite way, but like, would you consider leaving them to the museum? But to be like, hey, we we'll take them just in case you burn your house down feels crazy.

SPEAKER_05 43:03

I I think I suspect that this is probably like a casual remark made to her of being like, oh, this it'd be cool to have her Bible.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

But if we had that, wouldn't it be nice?

SPEAKER_05 43:12

It was like a real turning point. Uh and uh and for Deborah, like, you know, the she was she got very paranoid about someone trying to come and take them after this moment. So she, you know, somebody was just kind of like, oh and she was like, Whoa, what what are we doing? You're you're coming for my mother's belongings. So she like immediately went ran home and hid them. And then uh after that, she kind of like was much more suspicious of the the the like museum foundation generally, of all of them. And like she uh found out about the bank account and like that was made in her mother's name, uh, and she was you know furious about that. And she was like, We shouldn't be spending money on big wax statues, we should be spending money, you know, like if if if you're raising money, we should be giving.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

I agree with that. So uh healthcare before wax statues. I've always said that.

SPEAKER_05 44:09

Um Deborah did continue working with Speed and the museum committee, but mostly at this point as a means to an end to learn as much to learn more about her mother. They were doing more research and learning more stuff, and she wanted to know those things. So okay. So the next big blow to Deborah's confidence and this whole process came after she was contacted by a man claiming to be a doctor and a lawyer, and he could help her family get the money that they deserved. So this is like a clock. Oh yeah. He called himself Dr. Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Too many names already. Yeah. Too many names. Nope. Immediately no.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

I've seen what I needed to say. So he told Tebra that her and her family needed to copyright their mother's name to protect themselves from fraud, which is he is fraud. So if that's why he is fraud. Fraud is he. And he also said that he believed that Hopkins was guilty of medical malpractice and that they should sue for a portion of all of the money made from the Gila cells. So Kofiel made the generous offer that the family would pay him nothing but a percentage of what they were able to earn. So like they didn't pay him anything up front, and that like got his foot in the door. So Deborah didn't understand how or why they would, you know, be able to copyright her mother's name. Uh, but they did believe that they were owed money. Her and her brothers believed that they were owed money, and they were like, okay, this seems like a a lawyer that we can afford, and she was motivated. So sure. So they begin introducing Cofield as the family lawyer. He got to work fast, mostly spending money. Oh wait, he got to work fast, mostly spending his time pouring through the archives at Johns Hopkins doing research. Um he would come back to the family and then tell them what he had quote unquote found, conveniently confirming the family's worst fears. So uh he said that he discovered that one of Henrietta's doctors who treated her was didn't even have a medical license. Another had been expelled from the American Medical Association. He told them that the family uh that they had misdiagnosed her mother and may have killed her with an overdose of radiation. Oh boy. So, you know, uh the the the the license thing wasn't real. Uh they they you know had their licenses. She did uh the the radiation did not help cure the cancer and did uh I'm pretty sure substantively, you know, uh kill her help kill her faster. But that was also like the way he was painting it, he was basically just telling them what they had kind of assumed about the world uh in order to pull them into his confidence.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

As opposed to ignorantly, like yeah, and like, you know, again, I still I have a lot of um uh uh I do not like how this the the sample cell sampling and all of this stuff was was handled at the time. But the these these allegations that Cofield was making were specifically to um, you know, it's uh it's like cult stuff. It's it's like bring bring them into further into his confidence and make only access to real information uh by like feeding into their worst fears. Um so not good. So he started demanding to see Henrietta's medical records um and to further document examples of malpractice for the the upcoming lawsuit that he was you know suggesting. The medical records were the one thing that he couldn't access without permission at John Hopkins. So he needed an ext of kin to get those files. Deborah agreed to go with him to Hopkins, but luckily when she rescued uh luckily when she requested the copy of files for Cofield, the copy machine happened to be in need of repairs. So they were like, sorry, can't do it today. We're getting copy repaired. You know, you have to come back later. So Cofield tried to come back on his own to get the documents, but the hospital refused, needing the family member. Um he tried to push the issue, making this the staff kind of suspicious and kind of leery of him. So they looked into his background, and far from being a doctor or a lord or a lawyer, it seemed that Cofield was a con artist who made his money by pushing frivolous lawsuits. He spent years um behind bars for just other types of fraud, uh, for doing like fraudulent checks and that, you know, counterfeiting checks and things like that. So he spent much of his time in jail taking law courses to prep prepare for his next scheme.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

So I mean, anybody what do you think the percentage of people studying law in prisons is to evade the law versus to get their own justice?

SPEAKER_05 48:55

Yeah, I I I would hope that a lot of it is uh is to to to get, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

But if you if you hope that, that means that they were wrongly imprisoned. Yeah, that's right. So do you hope that? Well, I guess I don't hope that.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

But I also do know that there are so many people that are uh wrongly uh racial for a very good reason for bias and a number of other reasons. Yeah. Um so that's that's tough. And uh I guess 50-50 for shenanigans and for um Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 49:23

Yeah, hard to say. So uh while in jail, he sued the jail, the guards, the warden of the prison. Uh he sued McDonald's and Burger King for contaminating his body with poisons for the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

I mean, we should all do that.

SPEAKER_05 49:36

Yeah. He threatened to sue uh restaurants all over the country for food poisoning, all while he was still behind bars and unable to eat any of that food.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

He was just like using a lot of his commissary for stamps. Oh, too much of it. Yeah, yeah. He's got some stamp money somewhere.

SPEAKER_05 49:52

Um so he got a local newspaper to run an obituary of him and then immediately sued the newspaper for libel and damages of up to $100, which I think is a bold move.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Also, newspapers are not like I guess the New York Times has money. I don't know. I don't think of newspapers as like the company that you need to get money from.

SPEAKER_05 50:11

Yeah. He's you know, he's throwing anything against the wall to see what would stick. So his next target was Deborah and the Lax family. Uh so he desperately wanted to get his hands on the medical records. I'm not 100% sure what he was planning on doing with them after the fact because eventually he got to the point where it felt like he was willing to burn his relationship with the family to get these records for the driver.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

And then it's like, how do you how do you sue on behalf of them without their involvement and then take the money? I don't know. But I've never done law research in a prison, so yeah, no.

SPEAKER_05 50:41

Nor have I. What are you gonna do? Yeah. Again, some people in there probably doing, you know, trying to figure stuff up. That's right. Uh Did he do that?

SPEAKER_02 50:50

No.

SPEAKER_05 50:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

He just started taking it.

SPEAKER_05 50:53

But there are uh he did help people learn how to read uh that would then go on to uh get themselves out. Yeah, try to get themselves up. Yeah. But he couldn't because uh he was doing crimes for the warden, and so they were right, you know, they they were like, even if you found out that you were you were innocent, I don't care. Let you leave. Yeah, which is why that one guy got unalive. Yeah. Check out Sha Shank Redemption, my favorite movie. Weirdly Danny's favorite movie. And from when I was a child.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

He has a twinkle in his eye, that's his favorite film.

SPEAKER_05 51:24

Yeah. I don't know. I just think it was a good movie.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Yeah, it's like it was a great movie.

SPEAKER_05 51:29

Um so nah. And I could go for a Take Me Away. Yeah. Um, I also just like a little like scavenger hunt in a rock field in the middle of like California, where you gotta go find a little tiny box from your friend. Go to the tree and find this note to yeah. That's nice. That's nice. A red. Um so when the staff at John Hopkins learned who Cofield was, they uh took immediate steps to protect the family, barring Cofield from the premises and getting Deborah to sign a document, refusing all access to him for sensitive files. So when Cofield found out about this, he was furious. He immediately turned around and then started suing the family, suing Deborah, the whole Lax family, uh, as well as a long list of John Hopkins officials. So piles and piles and piles of legal documents began ending up on Deborah's door. She like panicked. Like this is, you know, one, this like the this hopefully silver bullet that was gonna help her family get money and help kind of get to the bottom of some things was clearly uh a fraud and a mistake. And now like she was inundated with all of this stuff that she didn't understand and like really stressed her out. And like like her the after the Bible thing, like her paranoia and like skepticism of the world kind of ratcheted up. And this is like another tick-up on the on the scale of like you know what to do. Um so uh she went to Courtney Speed, believing that uh the the woman from the Heritage Society, uh believing that she was working with Cofield to take her mother's records and her belongings from her. So she demanded that they immediately turn over any information about her mother and shut down the foundation completely. Uh by this time, the BBC documentary had aired, and her phone was ringing off the hooks with other reporters and and people demanding for more information about her mother. So Deborah decided it was time for her at least to actually see whether mother's records uh held at John Hopkins. So she went there to get a copy. While there, the staff at John Hopkins told her not to worry. They were going to fight Cofield on her behalf as well as uh theirs and would make sure that he never got access to her mother's records. And they did do that. They they like so like the family, as as far as I know, didn't didn't pay legal fees to kind of deal with Cofield stuff. The hospital kind of did that. Well, that's uncovering that. John Hopkins as an institution um does not want to get pulled into this like as a storyline. They don't want their their name kind of kind of dragged into it. But there's so many people within John Hopkins that want to like over the years want to honor and help and and kind of protect the Lax family. So like there are a lot of like you know pieces of it that um I think are really really nice. And but as an institution, John Hopkins was like no comment, which I think is kind of rough.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

But yeah, there's somebody in some office being like, don't talk to them.

SPEAKER_05 54:23

Yeah, yeah. So um yeah, eventually the cases were all finally dismissed, but the whole affair really left a sour taste in everyone's mouth. So before Cofield had uh, you know, but started suing John Hopkins, there were some people within the hospital that were trying to properly honor their contributions at John Hopkins, but that all got like when this all started happening, when it really blew up, they were like, we're gonna scrap that. And they never went back to that as an idea, as far as I know. Um Deborah really couldn't shake the paranoia, so she believed that like Cofield or one of his agents would show up any day to steal her mother's records or her Bible or uh maybe even her own cells to see whether they were useful in like scientific testing. Like it all feels possible.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

I know that we're tell saying she's paranoid, but she has fantastic reasons.

SPEAKER_05 55:13

Yes, fantastic reasons. And I just think that like you know, uh the the there were a lot of like myths and things about about doctors and and science and all of this stuff that were damaging and dangerous to you know the black community and specifically the Lax family. And like after you learn that your mother is somehow still sort of alive for 50 years, you're like, what is true anymore?

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Literally what's real because that sounds like science fiction, also like it all yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:39

And then on top of that, you start getting like con artists kind of getting into the mix and kind of stir stirring everything up. It's just like, oh boy, trust no one. I like I I I feel very strongly for for Deborah and the the whole family, but like um the the book focuses a lot around Deborah because her and the author became incredibly close. Yeah. Uh and like they kind of work together to to uncover a lot of these things. Um, but they their whole relationship the entire time was was a a it would vacillate very quickly between like full trust and real excitement about like the the the chase of learning more information about her mother and her uh her older sister who is is part of this story as well. Um but then she would like all of a sudden be like, wait a minute, are you one of Cofield's people? Are you here for my mother's records? Like it's all kind of really tragic. And also all of it led to Deborah's like anxiety being incredibly high, her blood pressure being incredibly high. She, you know, did eventually suffer a stroke and and have like uh it's she had a very hard, you know, hard part of all of this, and a lot of it was because of the distress and anxiety that uh she felt. I mean, also her childhood was not yeah, it was also very hard. So a few weeks after she got back from that she was able to leave the hospital from that event was when uh Roman Patillo, the the guy who started the the Gila convention, he got contacted by uh a woman who wanted to write a book about Henrietta Lax. Uh, and that was no none other than uh Rebecca Sklut, the author of our source material. There you go. So again, I wouldn't normally talk so much about the author of one of these books because uh you know they're not normally as like part of the story in the way that that she is, but I feel like she had substantive contribution to like Deborah's journey and the story in you know as a whole. So the author first learned about Henrietta Lacks in 1988 while taking a college biology course at a community college to get high school credit. So she was uh uh you know trying to get some. I think there was something weird where she like didn't pass a class in high school, so then she did summer school to, and in order to get that class, she like went to a community college. Uh, and she was so she was 16 at the time, at a, you know, uh listening to a professor lecture and began speaking about cancer and cancer research, and he told the class one of the most important advances in medical science was the discovery of the Gila cell line. He told them all about the Gila cell line, how uh it was used in science, and that it came from a young black woman named Henrietta Lacks. Um, the professor talked a lot about like the science of it, about the polio, about all those things that we've already kind of kind of talked about, but there was almost nothing about Henrietta herself. And Rebecca stayed after class wanting to know more. Uh, but the professor told her very sadly that not that much was known about her. So from there on, Sklut went on to get a biology degree and then a graduate school degree for writing, hoping to become a uh reporter specializing in like scientific journalism. Um, all the while the idea of like Henrietta Lax never really left her mind. So in her spare time, she would continue doing more research on her, eventually uh getting the idea to write a book that was a biography of both the cells and the women that came from.

SPEAKER_03 58:58

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 58:59

Um so the fact that they she heard Henrietta Laxe's name at all was was something of a miracle because even though it was like well known uh by that point, it was not consistently known.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

Yeah, consistently taught, it's probably not wasn't in curriculums necessarily.

SPEAKER_05 59:15

Yeah, exactly. Um and it was still common in textbooks for it to be the you know the the the fake name that they created to kind of hide the family. So I always forget the textbooks are just simply not updated. Simply not updated, no. Um so eventually years later, Sklut stumbled upon uh a collection of scientific papers from a Gila cancer control symposium held at Morehouse College. She then contacted the organizer of the symposium, Roland Patillo, uh, and asked him what he knew about Henrietta Lax. She told him she was writing a book about her, uh, and he quickly told her that the Lax family would not talk to her because of the difficult time that they had with the press and the Gila cells.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:55

Um too excited though that she finally found like a real connection that was that he clearly knew the family and was asked, anyways, whether he could he could put her in contact with her. He uh said he could, but he wouldn't. So not until he made sure that she was like her intentions were good and that she wouldn't hurt the family further. I mean, that's nice of him to just want to be. And he did like days of grilling. He basically was like, got her on the phone and was like, what do you know about uh about uh the Tuskegee event? What do you know about like um the forced sterilizations? He was like really went through all of it because he was like, I can tell by your name and your voice that you were a white woman, and she was like guilty as charged.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

I was gonna ask, I didn't know how to ask, but I was like, I need to know, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:36

Um so uh yeah.

unknown 1:00:41

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:42

Patello finally agreed to put Rebecca in contact with with Deborah, but he warned that because of the Gela Cell lawsuits and and all of the press attention and all of these things that happened, uh, Deborah had been recently hospitalized and nearly had a stroke. So he gave her a strict list of guidelines to follow when talking to Deborah, mostly about being compassionate to the woman and not talking down to her because she hated being talked down to, have patience with her. She also uh is uh somewhat deaf, um, which is like a thing that a lot of the Lax family has, and it's feels like it's a genetic thing that comes from probably two cousins uh you know having having kids together together, perhaps. Also, there was a lot of uh you know, the effect of syphilis in like you know, babies and and and children could lead to uh partial deafness. Partial deafness. So that was also a big thing. And they didn't get hearing aids for a very long time. Like they didn't even get t their hearing tested for a very long time. So um because I couldn't afford it. Yeah, yeah. Um so Rebecca thanked him profusely, calling Deborah the next day. At first, Deborah was confused and then cautious, and then she opened up fully. She was like so excited to talk about her mother, and she was excited that somebody was finally wanted to like focus on her mother and not, you know, all of this other stuff and uh get the real story behind it. So she talked excitedly for about 45 minutes, not taking any breaks at all for Rebecca to and Rebecca was just like frantically uh scribbling things down. Um that more than anything, she wanted to learn about her mother and what she had done for science. And uh she never got to know her mother and was defer desperate for information. So she told Rebecca that she had her work cut out for her, and then she abruptly had to go, telling her uh that to call her back on Monday, you know, she got some mail in it was probably a pile of these uh, you know, of legal documents and it stressed her out, and she was like, I gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Yeah, I can't. Um can't be doing this.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:38

But then uh So Rebecca called back that Monday, but it was like she was talking to a completely different person. So Deborah seemed exhausted, possibly sedated. She said no interviews. Uh if Rebecca wanted to know more, she would have to get permission from her her her brothers and her father. Uh they they then she gave Rebecca their phone numbers and then hung up. And um Rebecca wouldn't talk to Deborah again for nearly a year. Um, so she just like followed a very loose path of breadcrumbs that would eventually lead back to her, but uh she had to like go travel through Henrietta's like entire past first. So she started calling all of those numbers. Um those numbers, but no one answered. After a few days, someone finally picked up uh at Henry and uh Henrietta's husband's house. But after eventually being connected with Day, um he gave her almost no information and then hung up on her, telling her to leave him alone. After her conversation with Day, Sonny Lax, one of Henrietta's sons, finally called her back saying that he was tired of seeing her number on his pager. He was like, just what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Uh he agreed to meet, but once Rebecca made the trip from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, Sonny never showed up uh at their meeting and didn't return any of her calls. So, not wanting to waste the trip, she looked up an old article she had read listing Henrietta's Turner Station address and then decided to go there and start knocking on doors to see, you know, who's around. So the article that had the address also quoted a local woman named Courtney Speed uh and talking about her dream of starting the Henrietta Lacks Museum. So she decided to start at Speed's grocery. But once she got to Turner Station, uh she couldn't find it. She couldn't find anything. I mean, even Turner Station itself was like not on a map. Like it just there was there was something that happened with it. Yeah, it was basically like in every atlas, it was in the crease in the middle, and you could never find it. It was one of those things that were like felt almost like a conspiracy that was like, no one's ever gonna find Turner Station. Yeah, and then you had to go through a like spooky, uh like gauzy kind of fog, and then you pop in there and you're like, huh, what do you know about Henrietta Lack?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

We've only seen the first two episodes. I don't actually know.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:00

We enjoyed it. So far, we're good. Um so she drove around town for like multiple times, just like looping around, and everybody was like, that crazy white lady. What is she doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:11

Insane white lady in a rental Honda.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:14

Eventually, she stopped at the new Shiloh Baptist Church, one of the bigger churches in in the middle of the town. Uh and she was just like peering in through the windows, and then like uh the reverend just showed up and like, how can I help you? What do you want? She uh asked him about Henrietta Lacks, and he was like, I don't know who that is. Never heard of her, couldn't couldn't help you. But then she asked about speed, and she was like, Oh, I know speed, yeah, I'll take you on over there. Yeah, and took her, took her back to the grocery that which was unmarked. Um Speed was pretty suspicious of Rebecca at first, demanding to know uh who sent her, why she was really there, uh thinking that she was sent by Cofield to weasel more information out of her. So after showing her the like crumpled up article that, you know, had it was like, I just I'm looking to learn more about Henrietta Lacks. Your name is here. I d I don't know what to tell you. Um she got so uh Speed then was like she got a little nicer, but she was basically like, I I can't tell you anything unless you get approval from from the family. Because like I think Courtney Speed really uh did duh I don't know if so long. Uh she really was motivated to like the the Henrietta Lax Museum was a passion project that she like still kind of held on up to this point where uh Rebecca was talking to her and like really wanted the world to know more about Henrietta, but also like because of the Cofield thing, she was like on such rocky ground with the family that she was like unwilling to not to kind of risk it at all. Um so the one thing that she did do uh was give her a copy of the BBC documentary made about Henrietta that uh uh that Rebecca had been trying to find for months but couldn't find. So I didn't realize it was. I mean, I guess it's before the internet really is showing movies. So uh she basically was like, took her to a place where she could watch the movie, was like, watch it two times, leave that movie in there, you write down your notes and then get out of here. Okay. So um the documentary interviewed a lot of Henrietta's family, including her cousins. So since the immediate family wouldn't talk to her, Rebecca decided to go to Clover and meet the cousins. Sure. So she's you know, really dozens of cousins. So she's really like doing like an odyssey to make her way back to her. It's a lot of legwork. Yeah. Henrietta's cousin Cliff took her to the homehouse. She was like, Oh, you uh you want to know about Henrietta? Let's we'll go to the home house. Then we went it took her to the grave. Uh, he told her that the exact grave was unmarked and she knew she was buried near her mother, so it's just like somewhere roughly around here. But um from Cliff, Rebecca learned that the the basically the whole family history. And she she continued to kind of come back to Clover multiple times, talking to different members of the family, really like kind of um putting in the work, putting in the work, learning as much as possible. Uh every few days, uh, she would send, like whenever she w left, basically, left Clover, she would send Rebecca or no, she would send Deborah messages telling her about what she had learned. She was like, Hey, I'm in Clover. I met your cousin. She says, Hey, this is these are the things that I learned about your mother. Isn't that cool? Interesting. Interesting. Um, partially to lure Deborah back, but I think partially also to like as a as a show of goodwill and a show of the city.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

Yeah, but it was like, I'm I promise. I am trying to learn about her.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:31

Um so eventually, after nearly a year of silence, Deborah called her back abruptly saying, Fine, I'll talk to you. Two conditions she had. One is that she needed to make sure that everybody knew who Henrietta Lax was, uh, convincing everyone that the Helen Helenly was made up and have them like never speak that name again. Uh and five children, not four. Uh, and Rebecca needed to help Deborah find out what happened to her older sister. Um, she ended the call by saying, get ready, girl. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:02

I'm gonna start adding every phone call like that. Yeah, get ready, girl.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:06

Yeah, that'll be fun. I uh I'm assuming all of our conversations will phone conversation will in that way too.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:12

Yeah, get ready, girl.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:13

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

No idea what to get yourself into.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:17

But yeah, because the because you know, uh her older sister had been like kind of committed pretty young. Yeah, like a lot of people didn't know about it. Like they didn't even like uh Deborah didn't even know she had an older sister until she saw it in the medical records, which is like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

So this woman.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:34

I know. She's really stoof. Yeah, she's she's been through a lot, but yeah, she's a tough lady. Um so Deborah and Rebecca finally met in person once, or no. Uh Deborah and Rebecca finally met in person in Baltimore. Rebecca brought a small gift with her. She had been talking to John Hopkins researcher named Christoph Langhauer, who had read one of Rebecca's articles and contacted her. He said that he'd been working with Gela cells his entire life and uh couldn't get the story out of his mind. Uh as a student, he had developed a technique called fluorescence in situ hybridization, aka fish, which is fish is way easier to say. Yeah. Uh so scientists would apply fluorescent dyes to different chromosomes and then they would fline brightly under ultraviolet light. This allowed scientists to better see what happened inside each chromosome, but from the untrained eye, it just looked very pretty. You know, it was uh, you know, so a Langhauer had used fish on some Gila cells and then sent photos of the chromosomes to Rebecca as kind of like a piece of art to be like, if you meet the family, give this to the family. Yeah, this is a thing I would like to do. Um so Deborah excitedly examined the gift, wondering uh about how beautiful it was, and was like very excited to have this as a piece of her mother. Um so they started talking. Deborah under Yeah. Yeah. Deborah's understanding of what happened to her mother was uh a mix of good information with a flair of science fiction and like kind of uh you know, her own interpretations of what she was hearing in in the news. So uh yeah. Just like we talked about earlier, where like once she learned that her mother's cells were alive, like anything kind of became possible. So like and a lot of these news articles were like flashy and like uh misleading and kind of confusing. So she had heard of British scientists cloning Gila cells and uh believed that that meant that like there were just hundreds of copies of her mother walking around London at all times. Oh my god. And was kind of talking to Rebecca a lot about all of this stuff. And then when Rebecca was like, that's not what happened, then like she she showed her all of the reasons why she believes that it was true and was like, You're the naive one.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:47

Which like I I totally support and understand where she's coming from. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

But um But she no, it just shows the level of like confusion and like well and like how little information that like was given.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:58

This is all of these other reporters, there were some of them that gave the family some information, but like Rebecca was like, Oh god, let's like we gotta like uh try to give you as much of this stuff as as you can and kind of help interpret it all. But there was also like Deborah heard about the the the splicing between like uh animals, like the mouse man, the mice man, and the plant cells and all of this other stuff, and was like, oh god, there's like weird uh monsters out there that are half my mother, and like that she got shot into space, and that she was like uh given all of these illnesses.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:32

That movie, I didn't see it, so maybe I'm completely incorrect. But Mickey 17. Yeah, like they've Mickey 17 to her. She just thinks her mom is experiencing pain every day.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:42

Yeah, that is that is she's that is not out of the realm of possibilities for what what Deborah was was worried about. And like she also like was worried that even though her like mother was not alive, that she could still feel this stuff happening to her. Because it like Deborah and the whole family is very religious, and they like have an interpretation of of the way that like you know her mother uh embodies her spirit kind of embodies this whole story. Because, like we talked about, there were a lot of moments that are like really weirdly coincidental, like the the the one reporter, his like car breaking down on the way in and like him almost dying, his like all of his records being burned, the the like heel contamination, the Turner Turner station being like hidden from the world. Like all of this stuff is like, you know, they they're like, This is this is like don't turn your back on Henrietta because she's she's a tough lady and she'll get you. Uh but um it's just like a lot of that kind of stuff where she did have some some very very good and and factual information, but then a lot of like worries and fears that were really kind of blown blown up because she didn't really have anybody to bounce her ideas off of because her brothers were not like her brothers and her father really didn't want to talk about it anymore. They were like, We've heard enough, we don't want any more of this. Uh like unless you're talking about us getting money from from these people that took from us, then that's all I want. So it's just kind of like an echo chamber of she's learning more things, but only little pieces of it. So um so slowly but surely over the years that this is this is happening, the like um distrust between the the like fits of d distrust between the women start decreasing. Um the the two got very, very close. Um like Deborah used to call her like my researcher, and whenever like one of the other family members would talk to me and be like, don't you try to take my research, my, my like my reporter. She that she's with me. She's mine. She's my and then sometimes they would go out together. Uh like I don't think I don't think ever actually, but they uh Deborah refused to like ride in the same car with her because she was still like part of her was still worried that she was gonna get like kidnapped or something. Oh wow. So they they would always drive in separate cars, you know, uh wherever they were going behind each other wherever they were going. But every now and then she would she would show up like dressed, like Rebecca wore a lot of black. Uh just and she would like Deborah would show up and she was like all in all in black and was like, look, I got my reporter uniform on. Let's go find some news and let's go be better. I love this lady. Rebecca took Deborah and her brother brother uh Zachariah. So his name, he changed his name from from Joe to Zachariah uh after that that kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:26

He was the the Did they pr it's pronounced?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:29

It is because it's written uh Oh right, you listen to your books. I was like, are you sure? No, no, no. It and and it's but it's very specific that it's Zachariah because uh a lot of people try to call him Zachariah. Yeah, it's like that is not my name.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:40

Uh and he changed his name specifically. It was like I'm uh he uh took on, you know, uh uh he had a very tough life. He was um got into a lot of fights young. He was the the um the youngest child. So this the son that was born while Henrietta like had uh you know the the the the cancer kind of growing. Um and uh got in a lot of fights as a kid and then went off to like fight in the war and then was dismissed because he was too violent and then got home.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:11

Uh he ended up killing someone and then going to jail. Oh wow uh and then getting out. It was like that the the the man that he killed was threatening to kill him, but it was it was pretty premeditated and and kind of um uh anyways, the the again the whole family, the whole all of the children had a very, very hard life. And uh this the he kind of turned a lot of things around while in prison. He you know, once he got out of jail, he was he was much more um uh uh more measured, but he was still prone to you know aggression. So like the Rebecca and and uh uh Deborah, like he they they brought her brought her over to meet uh Zachariah, and like it was it was tense and uh the the multiple times that they talked, it was hard. Um, you know, it was it was clearly like he did not trust her and did not did not want to trust her. But this trip was actually kind of a turning point for them because uh Rebecca took Deborah and her brother to John Hopkins to meet Christopher Langhauer and see her mother's cells in person. So they the he had that that was another thing uh Langhauer had had kind of offered was like, hey, I'd like to show them Pila and I'd I'd like them to see it. So and he was the one that made that um the kind of picture of the chromosomes under the fluorescent light. So they went there and like saw um, yeah. He they went there and just got to see you know what was left of their mother and see how it was used and really kind of talk about it and see all of the different uh things.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

Um I heard a baby.

unknown 1:17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:55

So he also told uh Deborah and uh Zachariah that he believed that John Hopkins had screwed up. He he thought that they should have never hid the origin of the cells, that they deserved a piece of the profits, and that he worked at John Hopkins uh wait. He worked at John Hopkins, who didn't own any of the rights to Gila, but he still believed that the massive biotech companies that owned the Lax, you know, owed the Lax family money for their contribution. So um he also assured both children that he knew what caused Henrietta's cancer and that it wasn't genetic based, that it was caused by the you know multiple variations of HBV and that they didn't need to worry about getting the same cancer that killed their mother. And that was like a huge relief because Deborah was was constantly worried that she was gonna like all of a sudden, you know, turn around and have the same cancer. So um uh her blood pressure once again spiked and and she was like sent back to the hospital worrying that she would have a stroke. Um so then Rebecca had to kind of do a lot of the research from that point on by herself, but she just kept calling back and like giving giving Deborah more updates and more information. So uh Deborah was asked to speak at a like a really big um convention that uh was gonna honor her mother, and like again, it was another another place was like uh like I think it was maybe nationally trying to become a uh Henrietta Lax Day, or or at least a you know bigger communities, I don't remember exactly. But uh the that was like her doctors were really worried about the speech, but Deborah felt very passionately about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:34

Yeah, she was like, I'm gonna make this speech.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:37

And um that speech was scheduled for September 11th, 2001.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:41

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:43

Yeah, yeah. So uh needless to say, uh the speech did not happen. The convention uh was was postponed uh and indefinitely. Um and that was like that was a big kind of a blow for for Deborah. She was really depressed about it. But it also like again, it's just like this this story feels like a forest gump. You know, it's just like everything is everything that could happen is happening is connected.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:08

And if you wrote it as a movie, you'd be like, that's not real. Yeah, but it is real, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:14

So sadly, uh on the Sunday morning, five days after uh the 9-11 attack, Deborah went to church to pray at uh a conference to be wait, to Deborah went to church uh to pray that the conference that she was gonna speak at was gonna be rescheduled. Um and then during the sermon, she slumped in the pew and was unable to move her arm. So um the the like worried about stroke happened. Uh she ended up living for another like ten years. Um, but she was, you know, uh not going on adventures anymore. Yeah, not going on adventures anymore. Um but uh eventually, you know, again, nine years after after the stroke, uh she finally succumbed to complications related to a heart attack in May of 2009. She died at 59 years old.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

Oof.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:10

Yeah. That's far too early. Yes. Yes. Um but i you know, to to some extent she did get to see, you know, her mother's name, you know, I'm glad that she met Rebecca. I'm glad that they had that they had that relationship. Yeah. It really uh it felt like something that needed to happen for um if she could have found any peace or any trust, yeah, like that's the uh sadly. So the the sh Rebecca finished the book, sent her a copy, and like she couldn't really read well in general, but couldn't read especially because of because of uh the aftermath of the stroke that well. And Rebecca was like, just wait, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna read it to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:50

Uh and like she was like making the trip, like trying to figure out how to do the trip, and like Deborah wasn't calling her back, and and it had turned out that she had passed away. Um Yeah, I know. I know. But um the so though the author, I guess because of ethics, was barred from giving any profits directly to the subject of her books, she did start a Henrietta Lax Foundation to help pay for the education and living expenses for Henrietta's grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:22

That's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:23

Um so like the some of the proceeds and the book was sold very well and is continuing to sell sell pretty well. Uh, and but a portion of the proceeds are are still going to um, you know, help pay for yeah, to this foundation for the grandchildren and great grandchildren. Uh a movie was eventually produced by HBO, released in 2017 based on Rebecca's book, starring like Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Last.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:47

I knew that Oprah was starring in it, and I was really confused this whole time because I didn't know she was Deborah, and I was like, Henrietta died at the the very old pointed out, age of 31. So I was like, how is she? You were like, oh my god, she's barely, she was on Death's Door anyway. I don't know why we're telling the story, she was already 31.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:05

That's a a a huge mischaracterization of what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:09

Well, you did say she was old. Uh so I was just confused because Oprah is not 31. Right. But it makes sense that she was Deborah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:19

Um I'm not sure who else is. I definitely want to watch the movie because I'm I'm interested, but um it was, you know, uh I have not watched it yet, so we'll get into it at some point. Um so the movie was produced in 2017. Um once again, the family was not able to get direct profits from the movie, but uh three of the remaining sons were hired by the movie as paid consultants, so they got a little bit of money there.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:45

A little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:46

Uh and then Rebecca donated a large portion of her profits from the movie once again to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation to further, you know, help pay uh pay and fund. In 2021, the Henrietta Lax Enhancing Cancer Research Act was signed into the Enhancing Cancer Research.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:05

Important last word. Research.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:06

Yeah, no, they were not enhancing cancer. Uh no, Enhancing Cancer Research Act was passing a law. The law was mostly just a federal acknowledgement of Henrietta's contribution, but also included uh directions for government accountability office to specifically look at the barriers for minorities in participating in cancer studies, like uh in experimental cancer studies to help further science on minority health. So uh, you know, a lot of people, like if you're w wealthy enough or if you have the right connections and and like all all other paths have failed, you're able to like get into some of these experimental tests, test groups, which like is a crapshoot because it could be But if you want to take that risk and it could have good results. However, a lot of minorities were barred from uh being able to be a part of that. So this act was specifically you know helping kind of realign and give opportunities for you know uh possibly life-saving treatments for for these people. So um in October of 2021, the Laxa State began a legal battle with a landmark case against a biotech a biotechnical company called Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. out of Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:15

Hey there. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:21

The suit was based on the idea of unjust enrichment, saying that the initial sales were taken without her consent, and therefore any profit made based off of that genetic material was unjustly obtained. Um the case eventually settled out of court in 2023. The Laxic state quickly got to work with their next case on the same grounds against a Swiss pharmaceutical company called Novartis and a global and the global uh healthcare corp VRTs. Sorry, I mean people are definitely going to be using this to be a very important thing. They gotta know for the book reports. So make sure you get all these details right. So uh both of those companies also settled out of court in 2026. Um and there's currently an ongoing lawsuit against UltragenX.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:08

That sounds like the company that made Principal Park.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:10

Yeah. Uh you know, uh you can look it up too. You know, it'd it'd be fine if you want to. If you don't want to, it's fine. Um so uh in the U.S. District Court of Baltimore, uh, and I feel like this is just the beginning. I think they're they're gonna continue kind of um going after some of these people, and the family is getting money, and it's probably all, or at least for the most part, I bet some of it is going back to the the still living uh relatives that are that are there, but uh a lot of it is probably going into this foundation to hopefully really help the you know the descendants of the Lax family um kind of go through it. So uh, you know, this I'm very excited that this is happening because it if in in one way, um, it's unfortunate that it isn't like going all the way through the court process to create new precedent and create new law. Um, but it does signal a shift in in the tone and the and the fact that like these these are the the pharmaceutical companies are caving like they are means that they know that the like that kind of their their time is numbered.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:11

So it's again if you're hiding what you're doing, you might know it's a bad thing. You might know it's a bad thing. You shouldn't be doing it.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:16

You shouldn't do it. So, you know, hopefully, you know, if this keeps going forward, eventually we can kind of base some real make some real litigation kind of covering and protecting people's like genetic, you know, makeup and identity and their genetic matter if it's going to be used in a commercial venture or because capitalism do be uh taking advantage of people.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:36

So there you go. You know, we did a you know uh 12 hours worth of podcasting for a 15-hour book. I'm sorry, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:46

I feel like we might have surpassed, but I guess we're just a little bit under.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:49

Yeah, uh, yeah, because I listen, I it's it's like a 12-hour book at 1.75 speed because I'm a psychopath. I hate that. I was listening at 3.5 speed for a little while.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

No, nope. Yeah, because I had to get those names. Nope. Nope. Bad. I'm gonna get better at researching one day.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:11

Or if anybody uh wants to be a um a loved but uh modestly compensated researcher to help us out until we start making more money, that would be great.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:21

That would be so helpful. Yeah. But uh yeah, that's the story. Next week, we will get into my series on the potato famine. We've already spoiled that, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:31

I think unless we spoil no, I think we're in the fourth episode. I don't remember maybe that that five-minute blurb from the time the the first three times we tried to record this.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:40

This episode and this series feels like it's what we've been doing for the past 17 years. Um I learned a lot. I've had a lot to think about. I have a lot of um anxious feelings in my tummy about a lot of these things. Yeah. Just because everybody in this story is anxious and sad and it's so.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:02

Yeah. I uh next one I'm gonna try to do something that is more uh you know less medical related. Yeah, just more people getting hot coffee burns, I think. Something of of the like.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:17

That was an old lady who got third degree burns. I know.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:20

And I want people to know more about it. Still a bummer. I still want people to know more. Are you sure she's old? Maybe she was in her 30s. She's in her 80s.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:28

I think.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:29

I don't know. I'm gonna find out more soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:31

We're gonna find out more. But next week, yeah, we're back to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:35

Yeah, watch out worlds. A crisp, you know, a tighter tighter information and more puns. Yes. That's what the people want.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:45

Is it? I don't know. We don't know. The people don't really tell us much.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:48

They've been telling us more, though, which I we really appreciate. And uh getting those emails are a highlight of our days.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:55

So get the rich bot at Gmail.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:57

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:57

Um, but yeah, that's it. I think.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:59

Catch you next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:00

Yeah, we're back. We took that little break. We're back.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:02

Yeah, thank you guys for your patience. Uh, and gals, and they's and thems. Failed it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:12

Failed it. I'm the most inclusive person in the world. Um good golliness, Molly. We gotta stop. Yeah, we gotta do that. Uh, this is the epi. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:24

Goodbye.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

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 eatherichpod at gmail. You can follow me at thefunnywalsh, and you can follow Danny at DMoss315. See you next week.