Henrietta Lacks' Family Settles HeLa Cell Lawsuit Against Biotech Company
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The family's attorney Ben Crump says the Henrietta Lacks' estate has reached a settlement in the case of the cells that were harvested without her consent
Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty
The family of Henrietta Lacks at the unveiling of a statue on the 70th anniversary of her death at Royal Fort House in Bristol.The descendants of Henrietta Lacks have reached a deal with a biotech company accused of taking the woman's cervical cells without her consent while she was a patient at John Hopkins Hospital more than seven decades ago.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the family, announced a deal was reached with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., according to the Associated Press. The outlet reported the settlement followed closed-door negotiations inside Baltimore's federal courthouse all day Monday and included some of Lacks’ grandchildren. Both sides released an identical statement on Tuesday, according to The New York Times.
“Henrietta Lacks was not inferior — in fact, she was extraordinary,” Crump said at a news conference Tuesday morning, according to the Washington Post. “On this birthday, America should acknowledge that she was extraordinary in every way.”
Related: Henrietta Lacks' Family Sues Pharmaceutical Company for Using Her Cells Without Consent
Lacks, a mother of five, would have turned 103 on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. She was 31 at the time of her death.
Crump declined to further comment during the press conference, per the outlet.
In a joint statement, both sides said they were pleased to resolve the matter and would not comment further, according to AP.
Thermo Fisher Scientific did not immediately return PEOPLE's request for comment on Tuesday night.
Lacks was a Black woman who died of cervical cancer on Oct. 4, 1951, nearly two months after her hospital stay began. During her time there, doctors extracted her cancer cells from a biopsied tumor without her consent, which was reportedly a common practice at the time. They were cultured by Dr. George Gey.
Known as HeLa cells, they continued to divide, and remained viable outside of her body in test tubes, allowing researchers to share the cell line widely and perform tests. HeLa cells have since contributed to a vast range of medical advancements, including vaccine development, cancer treatments, and AIDS research.
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty
A photo of Henrietta Lacks sits in the living room of her grandson in Baltimore, MD.Lacks' family was unaware of her contribution to science for more than two decades, The New York Times reported.
The suit against Thermo Fisher Scientific was first filed two years ago on behalf of the Henrietta Lacks estate, describing the use of cervical cells in a "racially unjust medical system," according to the Washington Post.
“The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history,” the family said in their complaint to the court.
The settlement that the Henrietta Lacks estate will receive remains undisclosed at this time, according to the Washington Post.
Lacks' grandson told the AP her only surviving child, 86-year-old Lawrence Lacks Sr., lived to see justice.
“There couldn’t have been a more fitting day for her to have justice, for her family to have relief,” Alfred Lacks Carter Jr. said. “It was a long fight — over 70 years — and Henrietta Lacks gets her day.”
Lacks' story was chronicled in the film adaptation of Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It was produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films into a Max movie in 2017, starring Winfrey, Rose Byrne, and Renée Elise Goldsberry.
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