Sunday, October 16, 2011

Amazing story

I never knew the Henrietta Lacks story or about the HeLa cell line.  But Rebecca Skloot's telling of the story is superb.  Advances in medical science, problems of medical ethics, U.S. race relations history and much more are skillfully combined in this amazing story.

Gene technology is moving to where we cannot know, but it is doing so ever faster.   Ethics, law, and policy will have to keep up.  This is very likely to become a huge challenge.  If anyone wants to start thinking about these difficulties, you can start by reading this book.