For more than seventy years, the family of Henrietta Lacks has fought to ensure that her rights and last wishes, even post-mortem, are respected. The case has been taken to court, and an agreement has finally been reached. Henrietta Lacks died in 1951. This African-American, who suffered from cancer of the cervix, had her cells “stolen”, taken without her knowledge. Cells that have revolutionized modern medicine. The Lacks family has only just reached an agreement with Thermo Fisher to end legal proceedings against the biotech company, family lawyers announced on Tuesday (August 1).
“Stakeholders are pleased to have found a way to resolve this case outside of court,” attorneys Ben Crump and Chris Seeger, on behalf of Henrietta Lacks’ family, said in a statement. “The terms of the settlement will remain confidential,” they said, nearly two years after a lawsuit was filed in the eastern US state of Maryland.
“His contributions to modern medicine have changed and saved many lives,” said Ben Crump, a famous civil rights lawyer who had notably represented the family of George Floyd, on his Twitter account (renamed X).
In 1951, 31-year-old Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at Johns-Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. During attempts to treat her, cells from her tumor were removed and transmitted to a researcher without her knowledge.
He quickly realized that his cells, renamed HeLa cells, had extraordinary qualities: they could be grown in vitro, i.e. outside the human body, and multiply ad infinitum.
They have since enabled laboratories around the world to develop vaccines – notably against polio –, cancer treatments and certain cloning techniques, an industry worth billions of dollars.
“They’ve been using his cells for seventy years and the Lacks family hasn’t received anything for this theft,” his granddaughter, Kimberly Lacks, denounced in 2021, when the family indicated their intention. to file a complaint, accusing Thermo Fisher Scientific of having profited from the commercialization of the cells. The announcement of the resolution of the lawsuits comes on the day of Henrietta Lacks’ 103rd birthday.
The company did not immediately respond to requests from AFP.
