Contrast this with James Harrison, who, voluntarily and for no compensation, donated his blood plasma once every three weeks for 57 years, because his blood was unusually good for medicine:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)</a>
It is strange to me how in the last few decades ‘hero’ and ‘victim’ have gotten muddle together. I believe that a hero has to actively do something important in spite of great personal risk to himself which he recognises. As an example, a heroic teacher might run into a burning school to save a child, but a teacher who goes into a build to fetch a kid in the ordinary course of his job, without knowing that there is a hidden fire elsewhere in the building, isn’t being heroic (at least not yet). Heroism isn’t passive: the hero has to have a choice.<p>A victim is someone who experiences something bad done to him. Mrs. Lacks was a victim of medical practices we would not support today. She didn’t have a choice: indeed, it was the failure to respect her right to choose the disposition of her remains which was the injustice she suffered.
I know I'm not actually engaging with the substance of this post (because it isn't worth it, sorry – not one of his good ones) but it's interesting to note that people are suddenly posting all sorts of spicy things. Feels like people are doing victory laps about "death of DEI".<p>And the thing is... the things they're posting are <i>really</i> boring. Like pg's "origin of Woke" that even HN dragged.<p>I get people's point that the past 10 years have stifled interesting discussion. Well, let's see it then. Show me the interesting discussion. This is not it.
It’s problematic to make assumptions about someone who isn’t here to speak for themselves. While the unauthorized use of medical samples without consent is clearly unethical, neither heroizing nor victimizing Henrietta Lacks accurately represents her role. The unique properties of her cells don’t justify their collection and use without permission.
I have to give him some credit, after he said something that seemed totally hypocritical I instantly thought "What is he some Marxist now that a black woman's family might have some valuable property?" but read on and he made exactly the same point I would about getting rich finding oil.<p>Would respect him more if he'd realised that made the whole thing not worth writing about, but I guess he just couldn't let it go.
I only skimmed the article but it seems like the idea that Lacks was a "Scientific Hero" is something the author implies was implied by others and then goes on to argue that it isn't the case. This strikes me as disingenuous, a way of trying to rally against sympathy for her case by addressing a claim made up by the author.