While
reading “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, I couldn’t help but notice a
relation in her story to a blockbuster game that was recently released for the
Playstation 4 titled “The Last of Us”. In the game, there’s an epidemic
infecting the human race, and a group called the “fireflies” is expecting a
delivery of a girl who they believe holds the key to the cure.
While
watching my roommate play through the story, I realized it was a struggle of
the humanity of a single individual verses the saving of the entire population;
when Joel, the main character of the game, drops off Ellie, the girl who is
impervious to the disease, we find out that the only way the doctors in the
game can extract a cure is to kill her; she’s already asleep and has no way of
saying that she would be okay with this, but Joel finds her life more important
and cannot stand to see her die.
Although
this is a much more serious example than Henrietta Lacks, I find it to be
teaching the same lesson. In the book,
we find Henrietta on her deathbed, her cells used without permission; she has
no way of understanding the situation at hand or the things that can be done
with her internal possessions. If she had understood, she and her family might
have been able to make a profit and come out of poverty because of her
condition.
The
game ends with Joel and Ellie together, walking toward a safe haven. She
expected to be dead, but when he saved her, he sacrificed the one chance
humanity had at getting rid of the epidemic. Ellie questions him, asking if she
really had a chance to end the nightmare, to which Joel replies with a
mysterious answer- he states that there was no way a cure could have been made
and the Firefiles decided to not go through with the procedure.
Her
questions imitate that of the Lacks family when, in the 70’s, they were
contacted by geneticists to have blood drawn. They didn’t know why or what was
happening, and they were not given the full story. There was no consent needed
to have the blood drawn, but they were also being researched and did not know
for what. If they would have known, they might have had a hunch to ask for
payment.
When
members of the Lacks family, specifically Deborah, saw her mother’s cells for
the first time, she was in awe. In “The Last of Us”, there was no time for awe
or experimentation- there was only the imminent danger of the strain and what
could happen if it spread. In Henrietta’s case, there was no imminent danger,
other than things that could come up in the future, like Polio or HIV. Deborah,
when she’s at the hospital, realizes the difference that her mother’s cells has
made and comes to terms with the fact that her family is never going to be
wealthy because of them.
The
Last of Us and the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are both similar because of
the commentary they both provide about healthcare and the rights that an
individual has to their bodies and the things that come from them. In the past
few years, laws have passed that say that, once something is discarded from the
body, it’s not the property of the individual anymore. Both stories provide
insight into situations that help to explain health, privacy, and the way that
people look at their lives verses the health of society.
