110,000 scientific papers. 5 Nobel Prizes. The polio vaccine. COVID-19 vaccines. Cancer treatments. Gene mapping.
All built on cells from one woman. Who was never asked.
Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old mother of five. In 1951, a doctor took her cancer cells without consent. She died months later. Her family didn't find out for 25 years.
Her daughter Deborah — whose mother made modern medicine possible — couldn't afford her own medication.
The first settlement came in 2023. 72 years after the cells were taken.
This story raises a question every leader should think about: What does it mean when the foundation of an industry was built on someone who was never asked? When the people who benefit most are the furthest from the people who made it possible?
Full story on ScienceLore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfIcjFM7BL0
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