Peer-reviewed article
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Henrietta Lacks.
Wallace Stevens's 1917 poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" suggests that what we see is never simply what is there. This essay presents 13 ways of looking at Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951), whose cultured cells were used to create…
Wallace Stevens's 1917 poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" suggests that what we see is never simply what is there. This essay presents 13 ways of looking at Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951), whose cultured cells were used to create the HeLa cell line, and whose story was told in a 2011 book by Rebecca Skloot.
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About the author
John D. Lantos is a pediatrician and bioethicist writing on AI in medicine, neonatal intensive care, and end-of-life decisions. His essays appear in JAMA, JAMA Pediatrics, the Hastings Center Report, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Aeon. Read more about John.