Henrietta Lacks and Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Original Sin
On its website, the Johns Hopkins Hospital explains that it never made a dime from Henrietta Lacks’ cells, which JHH physicians stole from her whilst she was sedated and undergoing unsuccessful treatment for cervical cancer. “Although these were the first cells that could be easily shared and multiplied in a lab setting, Johns Hopkins has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line. Rather, Johns Hopkins offered HeLa cells freely and widely for scientific research.” JHH makes the point repeatedly, on several different webpages across its social media platforms. Always with the exact same curious “talking point” language too. It also hastens to point out that it surreptitiously harvested body parts not just from black patients, but white patients too.
Whether JHH sold or gave the stolen body parts is hardly relevant even if they never made a dime, an assertion hardly even believable. The Hela cells were a part of Henrietta’s natural endowment, just like name, image, and likeness. JHH stole from a charitable patient, let’s just admit that. “HeLa,” that’s the name by which Henrietta Lacks’ remains are now know around the world for their “immortality” and their having lead to discoveries worth billions. From its inception, by the way, JHH was one of the few hospitals that treated African Americans. But only in segregated wards so as not to offend white patients. I am not mad at JHH, I’m just not sure I want to say thank you.
You have probably heard that Henrietta’s heirs recently settled a case in which one of the many pharmaceutical companies that made billions paid her estate millions, at least, for its commercialization of Henrietta’s body parts. A few days later the estate’s attorneys filed suit against another pharmaceutical company which, if well advised, will also settle. As it should. The complaint relates the facts that everybody admits to now. Treating physicians snipped off a few of her parts. She was gonna die anyway, and look at all the good that’s been done.
What about JHH’s exempt status? It opened in 1889 using $7 million from Johns Hopkins’ will and has been officially tax exempt since 1948 according to Guidestar. I am not even sure if JHH ever paid damages. And there is a healthy debate, believe it or not, regarding whether JHH even did anything illegal or actionable, according to the laws of property and informed consent then in effect. That, too, is beside the point because JHH exploited Henrietta for its own purposes, reason enough to revoke tax exemption if there were a reason for that today.
Imagine a charitable hospital today routinely snipping body parts from charitable patients. It should be an HBO series. It must have happened more often than we think because there is an illustrated story in today’s Washington Post regarding a body snatching practice at the Smithsonian years ago. All at once, JHH proved and disproved its entitlement to tax exemption. Yes, it freely gave away the results of its tax exempt research. Many companies got rich using what was essentially public domain knowledge. Everybody had equal access to tax subsidized knowledge. That’s how tax exempt research is supposed to work if we want discoveries to be beneficial to the public. That’s what is intended in universities when they set up “Offices of Technology Transfer.” But the research was stolen, literally, and the ends never justify the means. If they did, we would not have an unrelated business income tax.
darryll k. jones