Henrietta Lacks’ family settles lawsuit against biotechnology company for using her cells without consent

USA—After 70 years, finally the family of Henrietta Lacks has settled for an undisclosed sum with the biotechnology company that has used the cells from her cervical cancer tumor without consent.

Henrietta Lacks was one of a diverse group of patients who unknowingly donated cells at John Hopkins Hospital in 1951.

The donation of Henrietta Lacks’ cells began what was the first, and, for many years, the only human cell line able to reproduce indefinitely.

Today, work done with HeLa cells underpins much of modern medicine; they have been involved in key discoveries in many fields, including cancer, immunology, and infectious disease.

The family of Henrietta Lacks sued Thermo Fisher Scientific, stating that the company had made billions of dollars from tissue taken from her without her consent.

Lawyers for the family argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. continued to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known.

Moreover, the company unjustly enriched itself off Lacks’ cells, the family argued in their lawsuit, filed in 2021.

The settlement came after closed-door negotiations that lasted all day Monday inside the federal courthouse in Baltimore.

Some of Lacks’ grandchildren were among the family members who attended the talks.

Attorney Ben Crump, who represented the family announced the settlement and said the terms are confidential.

In a joint statement, Thermo Fisher representatives and attorneys for the Lacks family said they were pleased to resolve the matter and declined to comment further on the agreement.

Who was Henrietta Lacks?

A poor tobacco farmer from southern Virginia, Henrietta Lacks got married and moved with her husband to Turner Station, a historically Black community outside Baltimore, Maryland.

They were raising five children when doctors discovered a tumor in Lacks’ cervix and saved a sample of her cancer cells collected during a biopsy.

Lacks died at age 31 in the “colored ward” of Johns Hopkins Hospital and unfortunately was buried in an unmarked grave.

While most cell samples died shortly after being removed from the body, her cells survived and thrived in laboratories.

They became known as the first immortalized human cell line because scientists could cultivate them indefinitely, meaning researchers anywhere could reproduce studies using identical cells.

The remarkable science involved and the impact on the Lacks family, some of whom had chronic illnesses and no health insurance were documented in a bestselling book by Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which was published in 2010.

Oprah Winfrey portrayed her daughter in an HBO movie about the story.

Johns Hopkins said it never sold or profited from the cell lines, but many companies have patented ways of using them.

The Estate of Henrietta Lacks Vs Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Attorneys for the Lacks estate initially requested that the company give up “the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line to the Estate of Henrietta Lacks” as well as reasonable costs and expenses, which they estimate to be US$250 billion.

In their complaint, Lacks’ descendants argued that her treatment illustrates a much larger issue that persists today: racism inside the U.S. medical system.

“The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history,” the complaint reads.

In a brief filed in support of the Lacks family, attorneys advocating for civil rights, women’s rights, and healthcare equity said the case is one of many in which U.S. doctors and scientists have exploited minority patients.

Another example they cited involved James Marion Sims, a 19^th-century Alabama surgeon heralded as the father of modern gynecology who performed experimental surgeries on a dozen enslaved women without the use of anesthesia, claiming Black people could endure more pain than white people.

“Indeed, a great portion of early American medical research is founded upon nonconsensual experimentation upon systemically oppressed people,” the attorneys wrote.

In another supporting brief, Southern University law professor Deleso Alford highlighted the discrepancy in status and financial stability between Lacks’ descendants, including grandson Ron Lacks who wrote a book in 2020, and the medical professionals profiting off her cells.

“In the same year Mr. Lacks was self-publishing a book in the hopes of finding some help for his family, the CEO of Thermo Fisher received a compensation package of over US$26 million,” the brief says.

Thermo Fisher argued the case should be dismissed because it was filed after the statute of limitations expire.

Lawyers for the Lacks family said that shouldn’t apply because the company is continuously benefiting.

In a statement posted online, Johns Hopkins Medicine officials said they reviewed all interactions with Lacks and her family after the publication of Skloot’s book.

While acknowledging an ethical responsibility, the statement said the medical system, “has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line.”

Though her relatives hadn’t received financial compensation, they reached an agreement with the National Institutes of Health in 2013 that gave them some control over how the DNA code from HeLa cells is used.

Lacks’ only surviving child, Lawrence Lacks Sr., lives to see justice done, grandson Alfred Lacks Carter Jr. said. Now 86, Lawrence Lacks was 16 when his mother died.

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