The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Episode

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, bookies, do you have a book that you're reading that you wish that we would read? Perfect match made in heaven. Just contact [email protected] fans and see if you could be the next fan member who gets to join the conversation. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Parental guidance is recommended because this episode has mature topics and strong language. Here are some moments you can look forward to during this episode of book interrupted. [00:00:30] Speaker C: The amount of detail I felt in each sentence or chapter paragraph felt important. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Am I cells somewhere in some freezer somewhere? Because I had both those surgeries. [00:00:39] Speaker A: We're just gonna put like a rod of radioactive into your vagina or whatever, like, instead of sew it in there just in case. [00:00:47] Speaker D: It's just criminal that they can't get the care that they need when their mother's cells or their grandmother cells is going around helping make the polio vaccine. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Literally informing the care of everybody else ever. [00:01:01] Speaker E: First hundred pages. Is that real science y? You know, the science y science, the real science y kind? No. [00:01:07] Speaker F: It would be like a secret. Like, I wouldn't even tell my partner. I'd be like, nobody needs to know this information. [00:01:12] Speaker E: I couldn't carry it on my own. [00:01:14] Speaker A: I need to tell same thing in psychology, right? They're just running experiments on people, and then people are freaking out after and they're like, oh, that really seemed to have a long lasting impact on them. [00:01:24] Speaker E: How did you know about our role playing? [00:01:28] Speaker A: Okay, you're my cousin. [00:01:31] Speaker E: You're my cousin. [00:01:32] Speaker D: My body has soul. [00:01:35] Speaker A: The inflammation is the goal. Trying to learn something new without the existence my body is information is trying to learn something without being disrupted. Mind, body, and soul inspiration is with us, and we're gonna talk it out on book interrupted. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Welcome to book interrupted. A book club for busy people to connect, and one that celebrates life's interruptions. During this book cycle, we're reading Meredith's book Pick the Immortal Life of Henrietta lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This book was made into a movie in 2017 and stars Oprah Winfrey, Rose Brine, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Sylvia Grace Grimm. Her name was Henrietta lacks, but scientists know her as Hela. She was a poor southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her enslaved ancestors. Yet her cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first immortal human cells grown in culture. They are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. And though the cells have launched a multi million dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. The story of the Lacs family is connected to the history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made out of. Let's listen in to this episode's group discussion. [00:03:24] Speaker D: Oh, shoot. I gotta do the intro, probably. Let me just look at this book. Oh, shoot. This is my book. [00:03:31] Speaker F: Wait, didn't you pick it and read it? Oh, Ashley's twice. [00:03:35] Speaker D: What's happening here? [00:03:36] Speaker F: Two Ashleys. [00:03:37] Speaker D: Two Ashleys. Ho. [00:03:38] Speaker F: Uh oh. [00:03:39] Speaker D: That was weird. [00:03:40] Speaker C: My thing just quit out. I don't know why, but we're here. [00:03:43] Speaker F: But there were two of you at one point. Oh, very weird. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Wow. [00:03:48] Speaker C: It's. I actually have a twin. I didn't tell y'all. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Maybe you're splitting in two, like the cells. [00:03:57] Speaker F: Oh. [00:04:02] Speaker D: Very heila. [00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah, totally. [00:04:05] Speaker D: So that takes us to the intro. It's my book choice now. We're reading the Immortal. Or we read the immortal life of Henrietta Ladd by Rebecca Schlute. I like that last name. [00:04:16] Speaker A: That's a good last name. I wish I knew it and changed my name to it. [00:04:19] Speaker D: So this is a non fiction, this is a reporter, science writer kind of book, which is really nice. So she's, like, telling the story not just of Henrietta's immortal selves, but of her and her family and medical ethics and all this stuff. I read this book a while back, part of my other book club, and I really enjoyed it. And then when I went to read it again, I was like, wow, there's a lot of words. This is a long book. Like, there's a lot. She took over ten years researching this book. It is good. And she was trying to tell the true story of Henrietta. If she hadn't done that, like, we wouldn't know all this stuff about Henrietta because some of her. Most of her children have passed on by now. I think she's got a surviving son still. So that was a really long intro. Let's talk. [00:05:06] Speaker A: It was a good contrast to the last book. Right. Ten years of research as opposed to three months. Right. [00:05:12] Speaker C: And I feel like you can tell when you're reading it. [00:05:14] Speaker A: Definitely. Yeah. [00:05:16] Speaker C: The amount of detail I felt in each sentence or chapter paragraph felt important a lot of the time, so. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And not repetitive. [00:05:25] Speaker B: And I didn't feel it was boring. Like, it went from lots of scientific information and detail to their family and their story. It went back and forth so effortlessly that I wasn't bored. And I only had ten days to read it because I ended up reading these other books I wanted to read before. And then I had to rush through it, and I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna read 400 pages. This is so thick, in ten days. But the first day I read 100. It was really easy to read. It was super enjoyable. I also liked that the author put herself in the book. Then it wasn't just like her reporting about the family. She was part of the story. I really liked that, too. [00:06:02] Speaker F: Yeah, I read it on the beach, which is funny, because you wouldn't think this would be a beach read. It was definitely such an interesting read. And I loved she put you in the world of what it would have been like during Henrietta lacks life and what was happening in the world, in science and in cell cult, and the idea of the people not trusting necessarily what people were talking about. I thought that was all very like you felt like you were in the world, but you were also modern with what she was dealing with, the family. Plus you were in Henrietta's world. It was three different kind of paths that you were in altogether. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Did anyone listen to it on audio? No. [00:06:40] Speaker F: No. [00:06:40] Speaker B: I had the longest waiting list on the library for that, but it's gonna. [00:06:44] Speaker F: Be here in two weeks. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Finally. [00:06:45] Speaker D: I have no waiting list, too. I never got it. [00:06:48] Speaker A: I listened to it on audio, and it brushed up against similar issues with eat, pray, love, when certain voices were being done. And so I don't know who the reader is for the audiobook. I didn't dive in or anything, but, like, I don't know language and. [00:07:07] Speaker D: Or because you brought it up. Yeah, I'm going to read something from the book. It's like, a few words about this book. And she said, here, I've done my best to capture the language with which each person spoke and wrote. Dialogue appears in native dialects, passages from diaries and other personal writings that are quoted exactly as written. As one of Henrietta's relatives said to me, if you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that's dishonest. It's taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves. So she says, in many places, I've adopted the words interviewees use to describe their words and experiences. In doing so, I've used the language of their times and backgrounds, including words such as colored. So when you're reading the book, she says in the intro, basically, like, I've taken quotes, and if they're using, like, the wrong word, they say John Hopkin or whatever. [00:07:55] Speaker A: So. [00:07:55] Speaker D: John Hopkins. [00:07:56] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:07:57] Speaker D: But I can imagine that as an audiobook, it'd be a little bit rating to hear the reader of the audiobook do a verbal impersonation of the people she's interviewing. [00:08:08] Speaker A: Exactly. And what's interesting, when you read, it's. [00:08:10] Speaker D: Like, well, she said that she wrote it as a direct quote to capture who they are. And, like, the culture of the people she's interviewing as well. So anyway, I think that's what you're picking up on, but, like, hearing it would probably be a completely different experience. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Well, like, when you read that in the book that I'm, like, on board. Right. I agree that the capturing as accurately as possible is valuable, and it's interesting that it potentially isn't allowed, if we're going to say it out loud. Do you know what I mean? Like, isn't that weird? I think what it does for me is it just, again, underscores the need to have multiple actors involved in the production of audio. And so any individual who's representing whatever they're representing should have some kind of license, for lack of a better word, to be able to represent it. So we don't just have one person playing all of the characters. We have a chorus of characters, all playing the people that they're most equipped to play. [00:09:10] Speaker E: Might be kind of more entertaining if it was audio recorded new, like radio back in the day. [00:09:17] Speaker B: I know. [00:09:18] Speaker A: It's like, weird how it's like going. [00:09:20] Speaker F: Back, but not like a radio play. [00:09:24] Speaker E: Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:25] Speaker A: I think audiobooks, all of them should be literally, like, I don't think one person should be doing. I don't think it should just be someone reading a book aloud anymore. [00:09:32] Speaker D: But then you'd have to charge more for the book and people wouldn't buy it. You'd have to change. [00:09:36] Speaker A: Would you? Would you? [00:09:36] Speaker D: It's all about capitalism. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Perhaps people could volunteer just to make the listening experience that much better. [00:09:42] Speaker B: I would like that. [00:09:44] Speaker F: I would volunteer. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Right, same. Anyone into this idea book interrupted. [00:09:49] Speaker D: Members read books. [00:09:51] Speaker A: If you have any straight white women roles, you need read. I'm the last person they need. [00:10:01] Speaker F: Leah, you read the book? [00:10:02] Speaker E: Yeah, I did read the book. I was just thinking about someone overdubbing our voices, which I suppose they do when they adapt podcasts to. To other languages. They overdub. And it would just be so fun to listen to our voices overdubbed by people. I would love it. [00:10:17] Speaker D: Like, who they choose to do your voice, right? They choose to me, like, is that. [00:10:21] Speaker B: What I sound like? [00:10:22] Speaker D: Cause you don't know how you really. [00:10:23] Speaker E: Yeah, they pick, like, an awful voice, and you're like, that's their choice for me. [00:10:28] Speaker A: I don't think they're trying to match voice. I think that they're just getting language down. [00:10:32] Speaker E: I think they're just getting language down. I did read the book. I read the book easily over five years ago. Loved the book. Hadn't thought about it too much since. Was not even aware that they made a movie about it. Until I saw that, I knew I had something to do. [00:10:48] Speaker A: I forgot to watch the movie. I totally forgot until right now. I was like, oh, yeah. [00:10:54] Speaker D: Oh, no. [00:10:54] Speaker F: I watched it last night at 10:00 p.m. because I was like, oh, I forgot to watch the movie. [00:10:59] Speaker E: You know what? I love it that it's of a time. Like right now, every movie comes out is like 2 hours. Plus everybody forgot the fucking editing room. I don't know about y'all. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Is this another two hour movie? [00:11:10] Speaker E: I can. No, it's back when they kept us reasonable. A good 90 minutes. [00:11:15] Speaker B: It was 90 minutes. [00:11:16] Speaker D: That's what we have time for. An hour and a half. [00:11:18] Speaker E: Yeah. Like, I can't sit more. I'm sorry. It's 2024. We all have ADHD. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Well, I also think that the limited series is the answer to this. Right. Do a bunch of lessons in chemistry. Yeah. [00:11:31] Speaker E: I thought the book was great. And the movie, one of the rare occasions where they did a great job, somehow edited it in a way that still felt the vibe. Oprah killed it. I usually love Rose brine. I didn't. I wouldn't have picked her. It's like, you know, your mental image is different than the casting, but still, I think it was a great movie. I don't know what you think guys think, but I thought they did. They really nutshelled it in a way that didn't feel too. Not too chopped up. [00:12:01] Speaker F: Yeah, but I missed the. Not that they could do this. The book gives you so much more of that context and that scientific kind of background that they couldn't put in the. In the movie. It wouldn't fit. So the story itself is there, but the. [00:12:14] Speaker E: Yeah, the opening sequence was a bit cheesy. Yeah, the science opening sequence. That's true. That's a good point because that really is the part of the book Sarah was describing, like the first hundred pages. Is that real sciency? You know, the science y science? The real science y kind of the other science. The kind of the other. [00:12:33] Speaker D: She kind of went back and forth from the sciencey science too, to keep you. I love reading science books. I'll just read that. But most people, if you do too much, they like, kind of glaze over and they're like, oh, man, this is like being in school. And for some people, that's the bad thing. That's what I go back and forth with, like, the family. And, like, her trying to get the trust of the family is so. Is interesting, too, because they've been betrayed by so many people. Like, who do you trust? Yeah. And the movie. If they went into just the sciency science stuff, people would be like, tell me more about the relationships. Like, people want to get the feelings from the movie. [00:13:08] Speaker E: But doesn't that say so much about the writing? That I don't know who likes reading science books or not. Aside from mayor, she's that one person reading those books. But it wasn't boring. I think it says so much about the author, like, wow, how'd you do that? Because I thought it was fascinating and sometimes gut wrenching. Sometimes science stuff makes me feel uncomfortable in my belly area, especially when it's unethical. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's quite uncomfortable. [00:13:38] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:13:39] Speaker A: The history of science is riddled with unethicalness, if that's a word. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Okay, I want to bring something up. Talking about that, the unethical. So I try to find it. I don't know if you guys know, but at the end of the book, it says that if you go in for your tonsils or your appendix out, that the hospitals take those things and then take your cells from them and use them. So I've had both. So I was trying to figure out if my cells are in circulation somewhere and some freezer. My cells, that's a us thing. And I was like, am I cells somewhere in some freezer somewhere? Because I had both those surgeries. [00:14:15] Speaker E: Wow. [00:14:16] Speaker B: I don't feel comfortable with that. You know how you can mail in your DNA? I'm like, I never want my DNA to be out there. Well, forget it. I was already taken when I was a child. [00:14:25] Speaker E: What did you give away? [00:14:26] Speaker A: Your tonsils and what else? [00:14:27] Speaker D: Appendix. My appendix. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:14:30] Speaker F: That's it. [00:14:31] Speaker A: So much for privacy. Sarah, now we all know what you're made of. [00:14:35] Speaker D: I donated my breast milk to a study, this breast milk study that it got sent down and my breast milk frozen somewhere in California that they are studying. [00:14:44] Speaker B: You chose that? [00:14:45] Speaker D: I know I did. [00:14:46] Speaker B: I didn't chose that. [00:14:47] Speaker D: You want me to put it in the mail? Isn't that going to be gross when he gets there? I don't want that job. I feel bad. [00:14:53] Speaker A: The breast milk receiver. [00:14:56] Speaker F: So I have something, once again, research that I did that in August 2023. Henrietta lacks living relatives reached a settlement with a multibillion dollar biotech company that they sued seeking compensation for using the regenerative cells that were taken against their consent. But it was an undisclosed settlement, so we don't know. But it's a Massachusetts based thermo Fisher scientific. They were saying in the article that this, because it was a settlement, it doesn't set precedent, but it could be something that people are suing for more. So maybe you still can. This is the states, of course. Still. [00:15:33] Speaker E: But that maybe there's still time. [00:15:36] Speaker F: Yeah. There's in a process of being. So at least the family got some money, which is awesome. Just recently. [00:15:43] Speaker D: And recognition a little bit. Right. That the company recognized. Okay, if we don't settle, this is going to cause a thing, and they don't want it to set a precedent to the company. So of course they're going to. They know it's sticky because ethics comes before laws, usually. Right. People start talking about, like, what's the ethical thing? And laws are born of the discussions around ethics. Like, that's usually comes first, is the thought, and then eventually something is like, well, we're going to have to make a law because nobody's just going to do it. So it's interesting. It could be the beginning of new laws. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Also, Lindsay, with the author Rebecca Scoot. She said it was like an update interview with the BBC, and she was saying that the family now are on some sort of board to give authorization for using Hela. [00:16:30] Speaker F: Right. [00:16:30] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So I thought that's amazing. So they've come a long way since the end of this book. [00:16:38] Speaker A: So these immortal cells, they were like her cancer. Right? Cancer cells. But other cancer cells prior to these ones died. [00:16:48] Speaker D: Died, yes. So cells usually divide a certain number of times and then they'll. They'll die. [00:16:53] Speaker A: Be done. [00:16:53] Speaker D: Like, they have a limited number of replications, but hers are different and hers are even better at dividing. They can travel in a lab like on like a piece of dust and end up in another petri dish and take over because they're so good. What I find also interesting is her cancer cells, modern medicine is kind of a lot based on these specific cells. And so we've made vaccines and all sorts of stuff. But these cells are not like every other cell. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:22] Speaker E: The fact that they're cancer cells, the juxtaposition of cancer to the, how much life they have given is so confusing and incredible. [00:17:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:32] Speaker D: It's hard to hold the feeling. How do I feel about it? Because, I mean, there's something there where you're like, it kind of seems strange that we based so much of our medicine and science on this, and yet it seems to work. [00:17:43] Speaker E: You know, I don't know. Like, again, this would be a research question, but have they found other people's cancer cells that have the ability to divide and I guess travel, divide and travel as well as hers? Or was it just like, this little baby works and it. Let's just go with it. Do we know why? It's very confusing. [00:18:02] Speaker B: Didn't they say in the book that they found other ones that did, but then they're thinking now they're across contaminated. [00:18:08] Speaker A: That's what I was gonna say. Nobody can confirm that Hela's not involved. [00:18:12] Speaker E: Hela. Like, these are magic cells. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So they thought they did. And then they realized, no, they're contaminated with Hela. And once again, that cell that we thought was something else is just Hela. Yeah. [00:18:24] Speaker E: Yeah, they did see that. Yeah. [00:18:26] Speaker F: Dang, they're the zombie cell zombies. [00:18:29] Speaker D: They brought her kids in at some point because they're like, we're gonna check to make sure you don't have this cancer that your mom had. But instead they were taking their DNA because they were trying to figure out what the difference was. They were trying to figure out if they had it as well. And why. Just the lies, you know, misinformation. [00:18:48] Speaker F: And in the movie that she interviews that made me so mad. She interviews that doctor and says they were told that it was just a check for cancer, but were they told that they were going to use their cells or whatever and their blood DNA? And the doctor said something to the effect of, well, those people wouldn't understand anyways. [00:19:06] Speaker B: So insulting. [00:19:09] Speaker F: I was so mad. But you think that was probably the thought process of all those doctors who did medical tests on people of color in the states, probably in Canada, too, over and over, because they thought they were lesser than or didn't understand. [00:19:23] Speaker D: Or situations like these where people started talking about informed consent because they'd be like, well, they won't understand, so we're not going to tell them, you know, they don't need to give consent. But these days, for us, that's shocking that that would be an option. Be like, I don't believe they would understand. So I'm not going to say anything. And that's okay because I'm smart and they're not and I'm the doctor or. [00:19:44] Speaker A: One thing that bothers me is that they necessarily view even indigenous people, too, right? Because of indian hospitals and everything, black people and whoever else were taken advantage of in these ways because they're less than. And so we're using them for experiments and whatever. So they have that view of their incapacities or whatever. Yet their bodies are apparently good enough to do the research on to then carry over and apply to us. Right. If they're not good enough, then they shouldn't also be good enough to use to base our, like, science and experiments on. Right? So they're not good enough to tell and they're too dumb to know, so we shouldn't even talk to them. But their bodies are perfectly fine and equal to ours because we can use those to find out whatever. You know what I mean? Like, that contrast really bothers me because I feel like it reveals that, you know, that they're the same, you know what I mean? They are just as smart or just as worthy or whatever for science. Right. But just so also you can move your purpose along, it's necessary to view them as less than. [00:20:43] Speaker B: I also like that one researcher that had been using the cells forever at Hopkins, Christoph or something like that, how he invited Deborah and her brother to see the cells, and he gave the picture where it's lit up by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:20:57] Speaker E: It was done beautifully in the movie, too. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And he explained everything to them that they asked. So they understood why her cells are so important, what they do with them, what they look like, what it's all about. People can understand if you just explain. [00:21:12] Speaker A: It's not about race, right. It's about education and. [00:21:16] Speaker E: Yeah, right. [00:21:17] Speaker B: You studied this for a year, so, yeah, you know more about it. But if you just took the time to explain a little bit, I'm sure they could understand. That made me really mad. [00:21:25] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing, too, is that, like, if they do understand, they're probably gonna say no. [00:21:30] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe, but maybe not. [00:21:32] Speaker A: So better not tell them and pretend like they couldn't understand anyway. [00:21:36] Speaker D: I mean, also, like, the greed of the whole thing. If you just gave the family, like, let's just say, 0.1 cents for every transaction. I'm not saying that's how much you should get, but you don't have to give back very much for it to be significant and fair. [00:21:54] Speaker B: Acknowledgement. [00:21:55] Speaker D: The story of the cells is amazing anyway, and they might decide, yeah, we want to help everybody, but, like, why can't we all just share a piece of the pie? If you are, like, well, we're growing them and paying for the nutrients. Like, sure, but just acknowledge where they came from, has their own medical expenses and challenges. It's just criminal that they can't get the care that they need when they're mother's cells or their grandmother's cells is going around helping make the polio vaccine. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Literally informing the care of everybody else ever. [00:22:26] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:22:26] Speaker B: In the entire world. [00:22:28] Speaker E: And I think the original doctor that made the discovery, the name is not in my mind. He was giving them away for free. I mean, though they were taken without consent, multiplied without consent, and passed out without consent. He originally wasn't the pharmaceutical capitalist monster. I think that. I think he really believed that. This is a miracle. He was just mailing met all over the place. Yeah. [00:22:53] Speaker D: It was kind of more like a medical culture at the time where it's like, you don't need to tell them. He wasn't the only one. He wasn't like, this evil guy sitting around. [00:23:01] Speaker E: It's hard to apply those plotting that. [00:23:03] Speaker D: Something that lots of other people weren't doing is like, the whole system was. [00:23:07] Speaker E: Absolutely. Yeah. You didn't really think probably about it in those terms. Unfortunately. [00:23:14] Speaker A: Same thing in psychology. [00:23:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:16] Speaker A: They're just running experiments on people, and then people are freaking out after, and they're like, oh, that really seemed to have a long lasting impact on them. Some questions start to arise, like, maybe we should tell them that they're part of an experiment before we experiment on them. [00:23:30] Speaker E: Boy, that stuff with her sister, that was really hard to read. Yeah. They, like, just did a thin slice in the movie. Oh, but the book, it was excruciating. I remember having to put the book down so many times. It was so hard. [00:23:43] Speaker B: The experiments they did on the children that are in the. [00:23:46] Speaker E: It's so amazing that of all the stuff that was lost, they found an actual picture of her. Seemed, like, so magic. [00:23:53] Speaker B: But no wonder Deborah was so upset. I couldn't even imagine that you finally find your sister from this. I can't remember what they called it. They called it insane Xylem or something. Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker E: Sanitarium, I think. [00:24:04] Speaker B: And that they told her that they did experiments on her because of her epilepsy. Like, I couldn't. And seeing her being beaten up when she was such a beautiful child, that was really hard. [00:24:15] Speaker E: Oh, but so Oprah. Ps. Nailed. I feel like, from an actress standpoint, like, her manic episode, that Deborah. [00:24:22] Speaker B: She really did. [00:24:23] Speaker D: Yeah. Of, like, conveying the anxiety and, like, the. [00:24:27] Speaker E: Yeah, that she's at the gas station. She's all, like, manically talking to a woman. It just. That was a good little set of acting on her. [00:24:33] Speaker B: So this is a spoiler if anyone hasn't read the book. I just finished the book yesterday. Debra dying was a real blow for me. Like, I just can't believe that she's been through all of that. And then nine months before the book comes out, she dies. Like, I can't even. I was bawling my eyes out. And because I watched the movie, too, last night, I just kept on thinking, like, how happy she would have been that Oprah played her in the movie to talk about her mom, that she just wanted somebody talk about her mom. And the whole movie was just about her mom, too, like, and her family. Anyway, I had a really hard time to end my personal journal. I almost cried. I just keep on thinking she just went through such a journey. She just wanted to know her mom, and no one would give her any information. And then anytime she tried to get information, people would either try to scam her, or her brothers would be like, they're just scamming you. Like, give up. And then she finally got all this information, and it was finally going to happen. Or even she was going to talk at that 911 thing. And then 911 happened at that conference about her mom. I was like, this woman can't get a break. Anyway, I really like Deborah in the book. I really enjoyed her. So, Deborah, if you're watching. Overplayed you. [00:25:48] Speaker F: Not as a zombie or as a zombie. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Zombies don't usually sit still and watch movies, though. [00:25:54] Speaker F: Well, do we? Don't know that. Have you met at occupied? [00:25:58] Speaker A: I've seen a couple, and they're after the brains. That's what they want. [00:26:02] Speaker F: Maybe when they're satiated. [00:26:03] Speaker A: Maybe if they're satiated. That's how they like a nice meal. [00:26:07] Speaker D: Braids like it's movie night. [00:26:11] Speaker E: Yeah, like, they gotta feed the tiger before you're allowed to go in and pet it. They just have to get it full. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Okay, I have something sharp angle we took. We're talking about Deborah's zombie now. [00:26:27] Speaker F: I love zombies. Okay, so, John Hopkins. I was looking at the johns. Yeah, John Sulkin. I was looking. Doing some research, and they published an article about the movie and about the book. And they said the publication of Sloot's book led Johns Hopkins to review her interaction with Henrietta Lacks, and lacks family over more than 50 years. At several points across those decades, we found that Johns Hopkins could have and should have done more to inform and work with members of Henrietta lacks family out of respect for them, their privacy, and their personal interests. We are deeply committed to the ongoing efforts at our institutions and elsewhere to honor the contributions of Henrietta Lacks and to ensure the appropriate protection and care of Lacs families medical information. I don't know if that's actually happening or what they're doing, but I think acknowledgment is at least a good thing. Right. [00:27:19] Speaker D: But think about what had to happen for them to make the acknowledgement. It's frustrating. There was a lot of work that went into this book. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah. To say the least. [00:27:29] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:27:29] Speaker D: But that's why it's good that it's so well written, because you can recommend it to somebody and they'll be like, I don't know, a nonfiction. Some people don't read nonfiction. Right? And they're like a nonfiction sciency book. I don't know. But she did a really good job making it about the people in the book, too. And so you can kind of get this full picture. It's a really good example of good science nonfiction writing, I think. [00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:51] Speaker F: The one thing that they didn't really put in the movie that I still keep talking about is that everybody married their cousins. That's weird of me. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Out. [00:27:59] Speaker F: Henrietta lacks, his husband river's name was that they're actual first cousins. The other one that was a suitor was also a cousin. They talk about in the book about how maybe the hearing loss of a lot of the kids and that kind of thing is because I don't know if inbreds were, but that. Because they were cousins, but it's too closely related genetically. And I just find that really, even. [00:28:22] Speaker B: The other lacs, remember the other lax that were white lax people, remember when she interviewed them, they were also cousins. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Is it just because, like, they're stuck in the same place, and so eventually you just can't not marry someone you're related to? What is the people, you know, sociological reasoning behind this phenomenon? [00:28:42] Speaker E: I think their ideas about inbreeding were just a little bit lax. [00:28:51] Speaker D: How do I keep a straight face? [00:28:57] Speaker F: Oh, man. Well, it wasn't probably. There was. Nobody ever thought there's anything wrong with that. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Well, just seemed like there was any major issues. Right? Like, the big scary words are like, oh, your babies will be deformed. And that may have been the cause of their hearing loss, but that's not outrageously shocking that you're like, oh, my God, this is because I've cross pollinated too closely. [00:29:16] Speaker E: Yeah, it sounds like that small was pretty small. Like, real small. [00:29:21] Speaker D: Homo sapiens breeding with your kind of close group is not that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. That's who you're with. [00:29:29] Speaker A: That's what I'm asking small groups, limited selection. [00:29:32] Speaker D: Look at the royals. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Look at the royals. [00:29:36] Speaker D: The reason they say, oh, your babies will be deformed if you have, like, a genetic polymorphism that is uncommon and recessive. If you have kids with somebody who. [00:29:44] Speaker A: You'Re related to, or you could end up with a dominant, you could end up with that. [00:29:48] Speaker D: But it's, I don't think it's that uncommon in the grand scheme of human beings to have babies with somebody that you're not even that far removed from family wise. [00:29:57] Speaker B: In victorian novels, they talk about it all the time. Like, in Jane Austen, there's marrying your cousin, totally normal all the time. [00:30:05] Speaker A: I think that there's probably an argument along the way somewhere too, where it's like, we want to keep it in the family. Like, we don't want to share our genes. We need to continue to really be pure Joneses or whatever. [00:30:16] Speaker E: Right? Like, interesting. I always thought of that as, like, more of a financial choice. [00:30:20] Speaker D: Everybody gets along and you know each other, and, like, you accept those people already are in your family, so you get along. I don't know. [00:30:27] Speaker F: Okay, so what if tomorrow you found out that your husband is your cousin? What would you do? [00:30:38] Speaker A: I would do nothing. I already have a child who's not. [00:30:41] Speaker D: We would probably laugh about it. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that explains so much. That's why we keep looking more alike. [00:30:51] Speaker D: Just because we dress the same. [00:30:52] Speaker E: We've already been role playing this. [00:30:59] Speaker A: How did you know our fantasy? [00:31:01] Speaker E: How did you know about our role playing? [00:31:05] Speaker A: Okay, you're my cousin. [00:31:08] Speaker E: You're my cousin. I don't even know, like, how you. When I think of roleplaying, always, there's, of course, for me, there's always an outfit element usually mesh. It was like, how do you dress up like a cousin? [00:31:20] Speaker A: I know. Exactly. How do you show that I'm your cousin, my uncle is your brother. [00:31:26] Speaker F: And, like, how do you bring that up? [00:31:27] Speaker A: Totally. [00:31:28] Speaker F: My kink is, can you pretend you're my cousin? [00:31:33] Speaker B: Can you call me cuz? [00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:36] Speaker E: That's a harder thing. What if you're married to someone, you're deep into the marriage, and they finally come to you with a role play? They want to do this in role play. That's the real question. [00:31:49] Speaker F: I'm sure there's people that they're into that. There's people that are into everything. So hot. [00:31:55] Speaker E: Anything that's naughty is hot, right? Yeah. [00:31:59] Speaker A: What's the kink with that? But it's like, it's forbidden, so that's why. [00:32:02] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker D: Yeah. What were you shamed for? As a child. [00:32:10] Speaker F: Sorry, that went off topic. [00:32:11] Speaker E: I took it and I went to a worse place. Would you call it? Would you throw in the towel? [00:32:18] Speaker F: Me? [00:32:19] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:32:20] Speaker F: I don't know. You'd really have to get your rock. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Would you be mad at your family? Like, why didn't you tell me? [00:32:25] Speaker F: Yeah, I know. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Someone's got to know. [00:32:27] Speaker F: If I found out and nobody else knew, and I wanted to say, I wouldn't tell anybody. [00:32:31] Speaker E: That's for sure. [00:32:32] Speaker F: No, it would be like a secret. Like, I wouldn't even tell my partner. I'd be like, nobody needs to know this information. [00:32:38] Speaker E: I couldn't carry it on my own. I need to tell. You have to tell them. [00:32:42] Speaker D: I'll take this one to the grid. [00:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it would need to go on the Christmas card. Guess who's related? [00:32:49] Speaker D: You just put your family tree. [00:32:51] Speaker E: Yes, family tree. [00:32:52] Speaker A: With a circle like an arrow drawing back and forth to each other. [00:33:03] Speaker E: If I did that, people will be. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Like, no, sorry, you're not cousins. [00:33:09] Speaker A: There's no way you are, like, the whitest. [00:33:15] Speaker B: Probably not. Who told you that? [00:33:18] Speaker E: You don't understand how cousins work. [00:33:22] Speaker B: You need to learn more about genetics. [00:33:25] Speaker D: What if your cousin was an adopted cousin? Would you marry that person? [00:33:30] Speaker A: That would be the best loophole, right? Like, it's the same thing as if your mom gets a new husband and then you like their kids, who's technically now your brother. That's the best loopholes. [00:33:42] Speaker E: We're not really related with my child because Max, her best friend, is her cousin Alex. This is at five years old. She's in love with Alex. It's not like this is friendship. This is love. Can Alex and I get married? I love her. Can I be married to Alix? Alex is a female and Max is a female. We're just going alternate root names. We didn't realize that till after that we'd named all our children male names for females. But whatever. I was like, I can't tell you. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Why. [00:34:12] Speaker E: You can't? I was like, because you're cousins and it's gross. Why is it gross? Well, because if you can't have babies. [00:34:19] Speaker F: So never mind. [00:34:21] Speaker A: Go for it. [00:34:22] Speaker E: Go for it. Yeah, double down. [00:34:26] Speaker A: So that's a good curveball. So lesbian cousins. [00:34:29] Speaker E: There you go. [00:34:29] Speaker A: No problem. Like, if there's no procreation naturally on the table, then what? [00:34:35] Speaker E: I think it's a procreation problem. So is it okay to marry your cousin if you're making the choice to not procreate or cannot procreate? Yes, but it's not as hot. [00:34:46] Speaker D: Doesn't this all come back to sapiens where they're talking about religion and how, like, people used to be? More, your family would decide who you marry and would it be appropriate for both families and what's best for the family? Not necessarily like. And then the church came in. We talked about this in sapiens back in season one. [00:35:03] Speaker A: Leah's book. [00:35:04] Speaker D: Right? That was season one. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Yes, it was season one. [00:35:07] Speaker D: And, yeah, they're talking about how the church kind of made it more taboo to be marrying people who are closely related to you, and it gave them more power, rather than the family being in more control of who you married, it was more about the church had a say now of who you could and could not marry, and it gave them power. [00:35:24] Speaker E: So do you think that these rules. I don't know, let's say the last hundred years, has become very taboo? I'm just giving it 100 years. Do you think that's a direct effect of the church stepping in, which they did for the reasons of more control? [00:35:38] Speaker D: Yeah, possibly because it's not just if you went to different places in the world, you'd find probably different opinions about this. [00:35:45] Speaker F: Well, and more genetic research. I'm assuming that we know that having a child with somebody that's closely related to you can cause genetic problems, right? [00:35:54] Speaker D: So could you get, like, a genetic test and be like, is there going to be anything dangerous that comes from this? True? No. Okay, procreate. [00:36:03] Speaker A: Can I add anything to my kink pile? [00:36:05] Speaker E: All I know is that if someone tunes into this episode and they haven't listened to us go off topic before, they're just gonna think, these bitches are so horny for their cousins. And I really hope that nobody's cousins are, Lilith, because we're coming off real creepy. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Someone's cousin's like, finally. I've been doing this, too. [00:36:27] Speaker E: Finally. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Knew it. [00:36:29] Speaker A: All of a sudden we just get. [00:36:30] Speaker E: Phone calls from our cousins. [00:36:31] Speaker A: How's it going? [00:36:32] Speaker E: This episode's getting cringier and cringier. Haven't talked to you since Christmas. Oh, my God. [00:36:42] Speaker F: I heard your podcast change topic. [00:36:45] Speaker E: Yeah, sorry. [00:36:47] Speaker A: For a full topic. [00:36:48] Speaker B: I was not expecting that one. [00:36:50] Speaker D: See? [00:36:50] Speaker A: Lindsay's notes. [00:36:51] Speaker E: And all of a sudden. [00:36:57] Speaker B: I didn't. I didn't marry my cousin. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Let's see if we can find a quiz. [00:37:03] Speaker E: A cousin fucker quiz? [00:37:06] Speaker D: Who's gonna make a quiz about that? I mean, other than Lindsay? [00:37:09] Speaker A: I'm gonna check right now. Probably Cosmo. [00:37:13] Speaker E: Poor Lindsay. I'm sorry. [00:37:15] Speaker D: I just couldn't stop thinking about the cousin thing and they didn't put in the movie. That's what I wanted to see. [00:37:20] Speaker F: It's not that I wanted to see it. [00:37:22] Speaker E: No, I know. It is a good question. It's a good, like, ethics question, and it's a good. It's got it all. [00:37:30] Speaker D: But I think the reason they don't put it in the movie is because it detracts from what the message was. Because then it ends up like this, like, us just talking about it. [00:37:39] Speaker F: Really. [00:37:40] Speaker D: Is it okay to marry your cousin? [00:37:41] Speaker E: This is where, like, this is how you talk about it, because you can't think about anything else. Yeah. [00:37:47] Speaker A: After a quick Google search, this is what the Internet says. Often cousin marriage is quite safe. It might even be a pretty good idea. But in certain populations or specific families, there might be more risks. Doctor Chung says that's because of a category of genetic conditions. So it does literally all come down to genetics. There's also a TED talk podcast episode called is it really that bad to marry my cousin? [00:38:18] Speaker F: There we go. [00:38:19] Speaker E: They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel on TED talks at this point. Really desperate to talk, like, please, we're. [00:38:25] Speaker A: All into TED talks anyway, so there's all sorts of stuff on the Internet about marrying your cousin that seems to be, at first glance, quite pro. [00:38:34] Speaker E: All right. [00:38:36] Speaker D: Or, like, it's probably just not as bad as people let on, right? [00:38:40] Speaker E: The future starts today, everybody. [00:38:43] Speaker A: Go ahead, marry your cousin. Popular science article. [00:38:47] Speaker F: Wow. [00:38:48] Speaker A: It's not that bad for your future kids. That's literally what this article says. [00:38:52] Speaker D: And I think they were talking about with the deafness. I was reading something this morning, and I think it was more related to maybe an STD when she gave birth to her kids. That was when untreated. Oh, that's possible. No, the genetics thing. [00:39:05] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, they handled that in the book a lot more. The. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Was it syphilis? Because syphilis is the one that does things like that, I think can also make you go blind. [00:39:16] Speaker D: But, yeah, it was also saying, like, if you look at, you know, the medical records, it would say, found this condition, recommend this. And all those things were not done because, like, they would recognize that something had to be done, but they wouldn't treat because she was black. There's deafness for something that could be treated that wasn't treated. [00:39:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't like all the pain that she was in and going through and how crazy were the treatments? The treatments, we're just gonna put like a rod of radioactive into your vagina or whatever, like, in there. Just in case. Just in case your body's able to get it out because your body knows that it's not supposed to be there. [00:39:54] Speaker B: And then it burned her from the inside out like she was gorged on the outside. [00:39:57] Speaker A: Even that level of torture in what was medical treatment. Just so crazy. [00:40:03] Speaker D: Thank goodness for Hela cells to help get us. You know, like, it's so ironic because those cells made medicine better. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:11] Speaker D: Ironically. [00:40:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:13] Speaker F: My grandfather had prostate cancer. My mom said that that's what they used to do. They would put the seeds of radium just inside. And that wasn't that long ago. I was 15 when he died. So that would have been, lord, just a couple years ago. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, don't do the math. Please don't do the math. [00:40:30] Speaker E: Twelve days ago. [00:40:31] Speaker F: I don't know if they still do it, but they did it up. [00:40:33] Speaker A: You better not. [00:40:34] Speaker F: That many years ago. [00:40:36] Speaker B: You know the author I interviewed for the author spotlight about taking cancer in. [00:40:41] Speaker D: The ass or something? [00:40:43] Speaker B: That's a swear word. [00:40:44] Speaker D: Hold on. [00:40:45] Speaker B: What is it called? [00:40:46] Speaker A: Cancer in the ass is a pretty good title. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Crushing cancer. A bit different. Crushing cancer. A patient's complete guy to managing a cancer diagnosis. And his name is doctor Carrie Forrestal. Anyway, he said that his grandmother or mother or something, I'd have to watch the interview again, that she also had the same treatment because I mentioned that I was reading the book when I interviewed him. And he said that his grandmother had the same treatment and it cured her of her cervical cancer. And she was fine after. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:20] Speaker F: She had the same thing. [00:41:21] Speaker B: They stuck her up there and sewed it all in. [00:41:23] Speaker E: Fuck. [00:41:24] Speaker D: Crazy. [00:41:26] Speaker A: It's crazy, too, because all of the racism, like, tainted doctors abilities to even take their patients complaints seriously, right? Or believe what they were saying, I don't like that either. I know there was a whole bunch of things influencing the situation in history or whatever, but, like, when you think about how the doctor is supposed to be the one that knows that you go to for help. Or at least that's what I think in my white privileged experience. Right? To think that they're just looking at you, you. And being like, not taking it with any real seriousness, and then you die because of that. It's just too much, you know? Like, it's just brutal. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Yeah, because she kept on just dismissing her and said, oh, come back next month. Come back next month. [00:42:10] Speaker A: And like, they knew. They're like, we don't go there because then we die or whatever. It becomes the lore of the land. Like, don't go see the doctor if you're black. Because everybody gets worse. [00:42:20] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They might actually make you sick. I'm going to do this experiment there is experiment. [00:42:25] Speaker A: Or give you something secretly. You come in for a checkup and you leave with syphilis because they want to see how it's going to play. [00:42:32] Speaker D: Out in your body or even cancer. Injecting people with cancer? [00:42:36] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:42:36] Speaker D: See if it turned into cancer. [00:42:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:38] Speaker D: Does it spread? [00:42:39] Speaker E: Well, I wanted to leave on a high note, but I gotta go. [00:42:43] Speaker D: Okay. Say something good. [00:42:45] Speaker E: Not because it's a conversation. [00:42:47] Speaker A: Do you have a date with your cousin? [00:42:49] Speaker E: But kinda. [00:42:52] Speaker D: Got a date with a sister. [00:42:53] Speaker E: I actually have Kara. Birthday stuff. Yeah. [00:42:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:42:57] Speaker E: Hit the road a little early, but it was so good to see your faces. [00:43:00] Speaker B: Do you recommend the book and the movie? [00:43:02] Speaker E: I recommend the book and the movie. [00:43:04] Speaker A: Do you recognize it? [00:43:06] Speaker E: I recognize it and I recommend it. See it? [00:43:10] Speaker B: I read it. [00:43:11] Speaker A: Any preference between book and movie? [00:43:13] Speaker E: The books always win. Books should always win. Book wins. But be interesting to see at the end of the season what the consensus is, at least for the books chosen. But, you know, often they don't nail it in the movie. And this is one of the rare occasions where though, you know, they do edit it and they do take out a lot of Henrietta's life part and the science. I think they did a great job. I think they did good casting. I think for Deborah, which was kind of the key role. Oprah slayed it. Yeah, she great. I don't know why this action is slated. Just like me doing a crazy hand is slated. [00:43:49] Speaker D: That's your zombie hand? [00:43:50] Speaker E: That's my zombie hand. [00:43:52] Speaker A: She's got to go get some brains. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Brains. [00:43:55] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:43:56] Speaker D: Okay. [00:43:56] Speaker E: It was so good to see you guys. [00:43:58] Speaker F: It was nice to see you. Say hi to Kara. [00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Okay. Bye, guys. [00:44:02] Speaker E: Bye, leah. [00:44:03] Speaker B: Bye. [00:44:03] Speaker E: Bye. Bye, Meredith. [00:44:04] Speaker A: You haven't had any spontaneous emojis this episode. I'm quite disappointed. [00:44:09] Speaker D: I don't know what happened. [00:44:11] Speaker F: What happened to Ashley? She's gone. [00:44:13] Speaker D: Oh, she sent a thing. Her computer overheated and she's going to try to come back if she could, but she might not be able to. [00:44:19] Speaker A: So she's not optimistic that it's going to cool down in time. [00:44:22] Speaker F: That's too bad. She can still record a personal journal and tell us all about what she thinks for sure. [00:44:27] Speaker B: So should we go around and say who recommends it? [00:44:29] Speaker F: Sure. Yeah. [00:44:30] Speaker D: I obviously recommend it because I recommended it before this season. Like, I read it a while back. You know how there's like two movies or the free documentary on YouTube and I was going to watch that. I never got around to watching that. But I didn't watch the Oprah movie. I liked it. I liked them both. But, yeah, I would recommend the book. And usually I recommend books first. This one's got a lot more detail, and that's what I like. [00:44:52] Speaker A: So where's the movie? Do you remember? Is it on Netflix? Is it on? [00:44:57] Speaker D: I got it from my library. When I first got it from my library, I just put it in. You can't just get a dvd from the library and put in the dvd player. It wasn't playing. And then I, like, took it out. It was just, like, covered in gunk. I don't know. I mean, the kids movies. If I get a kids movie from the library, it often has stuff on it. Sticky fingers, you know, sticky stuff. Anyway, so I washed it up, and then it worked because it was like, it's unstopping. And I was like, I washed it up. [00:45:19] Speaker A: I don't think you had to prepare the dvd. [00:45:21] Speaker F: I rented it off of Apple. [00:45:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:24] Speaker F: It was like, $5 or something. Yeah, I rented it for the day. You could buy it for $7. Well, buy it online, I guess. [00:45:32] Speaker B: So. [00:45:32] Speaker F: Yeah. I recommend both. But I'm always a fan of the book over the movie, generally a family books. I like this book better because I liked all the background information, as I said, and the history and the research that went into it, and I appreciate that. And her journalistic skills, as well as her connecting with the family, as well as the story of Henrietta lacks. But they were both good. The movie was entertaining, and I think that I got a lot more out of the movie because I'd read the book. I think if I just saw the movie on its own, I wouldn't have liked it as much. [00:46:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So I. I prefer the book, but I would recommend the book and the movie. They did a good job in the movie. [00:46:11] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:46:11] Speaker B: They cut out a lot of the scientific stuff, but I think the movie did a really good job. And I just like that it brings more awareness for the lacks's family. I'm sure it did. I sure helped them long term that they put out that movie if I didn't read the book. There were things in the movie, like when she showed up at Clover and it was just gone. Like, I wouldn't have known what was happening, because at first she just walked into what she's doing. I was like, oh, right, Clover's gone. But if I hadn't read the book, I'd be like, why is she walking around in a field? [00:46:40] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:46:40] Speaker F: Why is she crying? [00:46:42] Speaker D: Crying in the field. [00:46:43] Speaker A: What happened to Clover again? Like, why was it gone? Just because it was. [00:46:45] Speaker B: They just got rid of it, I guess because all the shops were closed and stuff. [00:46:50] Speaker E: Maybe did it have a purpose in. [00:46:52] Speaker A: The first place that it was no longer meeting? [00:46:54] Speaker F: What was the tobacco? [00:46:55] Speaker D: Didn't they do her families were tobacco farmers back? [00:46:58] Speaker B: Oh, so cigarette. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:00] Speaker D: So maybe just not as big of. [00:47:02] Speaker B: An industry anymore, I guess. Yeah. Anyway, so I thought the movie did a really good job, but I would prefer the book. And I would definitely recommend this book. I thought it was excellent. Before we move on to Kim, can you guys hold up your books? Because all three of us have different book covers. [00:47:16] Speaker F: Cool. Oh, yeah. [00:47:18] Speaker A: Mine's on audible. Let me see what book cover I have. I think I have the one that mayor has, maybe. [00:47:23] Speaker F: Let's see. [00:47:23] Speaker D: The first time I read it, it was the one that Lindsay has, and that was the one at my library. That one's been damaged, so I couldn't get out of. This is one of these interlibrary loans. And this came from another library somewhere in the province. So I have to say, like, I enjoyed the movie after reading the book, but also, I hate when book covers have the movie on them. [00:47:43] Speaker A: I do, too. And I was disappointed when I realized, oh, I have the movie. [00:47:47] Speaker F: Well, because it has Oprah on it. Anything with Oprah I think, sells more. [00:47:50] Speaker D: Than, I mean, I get it. Especially, like, a story like this where you're, the whole point of the story is to shed light on the truth about this. No one's saying that we should get rid of all the Hela cells in the world. We're saying that let's acknowledge the past and how important it is in the family and get the information out there and celebrate the person behind the cells. [00:48:10] Speaker B: That you stole those cells from. At least acknowledge her and her life. [00:48:14] Speaker D: A person who may have voluntarily said yes, use these to help people. Right? Did you have to be. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. [00:48:23] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:48:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:48:26] Speaker A: Recommend the book for all those reasons that you said, like, I think it's an important tale to be told. Right? Like, I love that it is someone advocating for the recognition that we're talking about. And I didn't watch the movie because I forgot, which I think is funny because that's the whole point. [00:48:42] Speaker D: Also, you love Oprah. I thought for sure you'd be like, yes, I'm watching the movie. When I got this book, I was like, this is a really long book. And sometimes all the members don't have the time to read the whole long book, and I forgot how long it was. But it makes sense. Ten years of research or whatever. But I was also surprised that everybody read the book. [00:49:00] Speaker A: Ganesh. It was a really enjoyable listen. Right. I listened to it, so it didn't seem. As long as I can listen forever. That's fine. You know, driving back into the dishes. [00:49:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:11] Speaker F: I have a question. In the audiobook, do you get to see the pictures? Because there's pictures in the middle of the book of this one, too. [00:49:17] Speaker A: I don't think so. I don't know how you would get to see. [00:49:20] Speaker F: You don't get paid on pictures. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Middle of your book. [00:49:22] Speaker D: There's pictures. Well, they're going to attach it. [00:49:24] Speaker F: The section is all pictures. [00:49:26] Speaker D: Mine's got pictures. [00:49:27] Speaker A: It could be a feature that I'm not aware of in audiobooks or whatever. And also, I think that my audiobook said the same thing that you were saying, mare, at the beginning, about how she chose to use the same language. [00:49:38] Speaker D: But it's easy to forget about that, I think. [00:49:41] Speaker A: Why don't you have pictures, Sarah? [00:49:43] Speaker F: Yeah, there's a lot of pictures. [00:49:45] Speaker B: I love memoirs pictures. Like I said before, there's the family I look at. I don't even start reading it. I've seen all the pictures. [00:49:52] Speaker A: That's so funny. I motivate myself to get to the middle. Like, I love the pictures, too, but I don't dare look at them ahead of time. They're my reward for getting halfway through the book. What is your book cost on the jacket? Let's see if the other books are more expensive. [00:50:06] Speaker B: Oh, it's probably in. It's euros. It's $10.99 in euros. [00:50:11] Speaker F: Well, I got it from a Canadian. Mine was $24.99. [00:50:15] Speaker D: 22 canadian, 16. Mine's. [00:50:19] Speaker B: Yeah, mine's cheaper. [00:50:20] Speaker F: Mine was the most expensive. That has the nicest cover now. [00:50:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that cover because I like that cover, too. Because it's actually, you know, I mean, they put the movie on. I get it. Oprah sells. People like Oprah. But it's kind of against the whole point of the book. Here's Henrietta. Look at her face. [00:50:37] Speaker A: Totally. Is that Henrietta? You know how they always had that one picture? They're talking about that one picture. Is that it? [00:50:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. [00:50:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:43] Speaker F: In the pictures and the picture. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:46] Speaker F: Hold on. Isn't it? Or is it there? Oh, no, it's not. [00:50:49] Speaker A: How could it not be? It's like the main character of multiple chapters. [00:50:52] Speaker F: But there is a picture of Henrietta and David Lacks, 1945. And then the kids. Oh, is that Elsie? Yeah, that's Deborah. And that's Elsie. [00:51:04] Speaker B: Anyway, the movie helped me see her, but I want him reading. I'm like, I want to see what this child is. Everyone's first thing is because she was such a beautiful child, even though she speak. [00:51:12] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:51:13] Speaker B: Well, now I have to find it when I come to Canada in a bookstore and look at the pictures. [00:51:16] Speaker F: Well, or you could just borrow mine that I have if you're coming here. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's true. [00:51:20] Speaker F: Yeah. You don't have to buy it. I mean, you could find in a bookstore and do that. Or I wouldn't buy it. [00:51:25] Speaker B: I would just look at the pictures. [00:51:27] Speaker F: But you're right. [00:51:28] Speaker D: I can see a situation where you're like, looking at the pictures and they're like, you can't look unless you're going to buy. And you'd be like, oh, okay. [00:51:34] Speaker B: And buy it. [00:51:35] Speaker A: Anything and buy it because they told you you had to. [00:51:38] Speaker D: I have to. Okay. And then you'd have to. [00:51:41] Speaker A: Now all shop owners are like, who's that girl? She never comes to my shop. I'm going to tell her she has to buy whatever she's doing, whatever she's touching. You're here. Yeah. Yeah, I saw you look at that shirt. You can't look at it without buying. [00:51:52] Speaker D: I know about you. You're legendary. [00:51:54] Speaker F: I recognize you. [00:51:56] Speaker D: I'm so happy that people liked my book pick. [00:52:00] Speaker A: So let's just review here. Let's see on seasons one, two and three. What is your score for people liking your book pic mare right now when you're so excited? I think, did we always not like her book pics? [00:52:10] Speaker D: Whoa. [00:52:12] Speaker F: Oh, the bird one. Hers was the bird. [00:52:14] Speaker A: Women who run with the wolves was a jeopardy. Question the other day, by the way, and I got it because they were all Clarissa pinkola estes. And I was like, women who run with the wolves. I know the answer to that. Okay, so birds, was that first you. [00:52:26] Speaker D: Guys pretended not to like the bird. [00:52:27] Speaker A: Ones, but we pretended even though you. [00:52:29] Speaker D: Didn'T like it, it had an impact on everybody who read it. [00:52:33] Speaker F: It's true. [00:52:33] Speaker A: I enjoyed that book. [00:52:34] Speaker D: Everyone was impacted by that book. [00:52:36] Speaker F: That's true. [00:52:36] Speaker A: I didn't not like it. [00:52:38] Speaker D: It changed you. [00:52:39] Speaker A: What else? [00:52:39] Speaker D: Chirp chirp, chikitty, chickadee. [00:52:42] Speaker F: Nobody liked the fun home one I picked, but I picked seeing red, which has now led to, like 100 interviews with the author. [00:52:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [00:52:51] Speaker D: I liked fun home. [00:52:52] Speaker F: And everybody's gonna read a saucy rom.com this year for mine. Some hot sexy scenes in it. [00:52:59] Speaker B: So is it hot? [00:53:00] Speaker F: It's sexy. Sexy. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Is it actually. Is it cousin love? [00:53:04] Speaker F: Oh, no, I don't think so. Maybe this is what I'm leading up to. That's why I brought it up. [00:53:10] Speaker D: That's why she thinks it's so hot. It's not even steamy. It's just family reunions. [00:53:14] Speaker A: Is it actually a limited series? That's what I want to know. [00:53:18] Speaker F: No, it's a movie. There is a movie out. It just came out. Not a limited series, but it's the book I had read. Decided I was going to write romance novels for a while, so decided to read a bunch of. And this one I thought was quite funny and witty, but also had the sexy scenes. I think Sarah's going to feel super uncomfortable, but love it. So that's my, if I remember, it was a while ago since I read it, but I just thought I saw the movie was coming out, so I thought it might be fun. [00:53:44] Speaker B: Lessons in chemistry is the one that's limited series. [00:53:47] Speaker D: Limited series, yes. [00:53:48] Speaker B: Everything else is a movie. [00:53:49] Speaker F: Yeah. I don't think we've done a bad cheesy romance. Sexy rom.com. have we on the podcast yet? That's why. [00:53:56] Speaker A: Not that I can think of. [00:53:57] Speaker F: I was trying to do. [00:53:59] Speaker A: There's been a lot of twilight talk. Like, that's the closest. It's true. Done it on the podcast that we talk about it all the time. [00:54:05] Speaker F: I just thought, like, you know, everybody needs some light. I don't know. Like, mare might hate it because I don't know if she's into that kind of thing, but I think Sarah like it, and I feel like Kim might like it, too. We'll see. [00:54:17] Speaker A: We'll see. I love these predictions. [00:54:18] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:54:19] Speaker A: So I was talking about lessons in chemistry all along. I'm just trying to confirm, is it a limited series? Like, does it have a beginning and an ending? [00:54:26] Speaker F: I think it's a series, yes. Oh, it's limited. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, good. I just. I was like, I don't want it to be still happening and seasons and. [00:54:33] Speaker B: I'm almost done it. Actually, I started watching it already because I read the book before, so I decided to watch the limited series and then I'm going to go back and read the book. So I've almost done it. I think I have one episode left, maybe. [00:54:45] Speaker A: So is that what our next recordings are going to be then? Lessons in chemistry and the hating game? Like, that's all that's left, right? [00:54:50] Speaker F: No, there's kid one. Yeah. Isn't it? And whatever the fan book is. Are we doing a fan book or. [00:54:59] Speaker B: Haven't got one yet, so I don't know. Right now we've gotten a lot of fan submissions for authors for us to read their books, but now that we do the author spotlight, they don't need to do that. We want them to be on brand, like a book with a movie if you're going to be a fan book. So we haven't got any submissions so far. We've got lots of submissions, but nothing for a book that's a movie that. [00:55:22] Speaker A: Fits with our season's feet. [00:55:25] Speaker D: So here's a tip. Authors make a movie about your book. [00:55:30] Speaker F: And then you can come on, contact us. [00:55:32] Speaker D: You have a few months to do. [00:55:35] Speaker F: It and then you can come up. [00:55:38] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. It's going to be as good as that. Long way home. [00:55:44] Speaker B: A book that a movie. And then maybe get your friend to come on the show. Because I think it'd be really awkward if an author came on the show with their book. If we recommend or whatever, it's different. But having an author on the show for like garbage, that would be really uncomfortable. If they were the fan on the book, I think that would be. [00:56:03] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's not gonna. That's not great. It'd still be awkward if it was their friend as the fan. So your wife wrote a book, I understand. We made a terrible movie about it as well. Let's talk about. [00:56:18] Speaker F: And it's on YouTube. Some author's gonna make this like really bad YouTube movie and be like, no, swear. You guys should watch this. [00:56:29] Speaker A: I love it. I would love that. [00:56:30] Speaker D: It's good to have an amateur film. [00:56:34] Speaker F: Okay, well, thanks guys. That was fun. Now go call your cousin. [00:56:42] Speaker D: Clear things up. [00:56:44] Speaker F: This is not about you. [00:56:47] Speaker D: Listen to the episode about the Hela cells. Seriously. [00:56:51] Speaker B: This interruption is brought to you by unpublished. Do you want to know more about the members and book interrupted. Go behind the scenes, visit our website at www.bookinterrupted.com. [00:57:04] Speaker A: Book interrupted. [00:57:07] Speaker B: This interruption is. I saw a phenomenon in the sky. So me and my kids decided to eat outside, dinner on the balcony. And it was evening, and all of a sudden we see like a trail of stars in the sky moving. It was really odd. Even my son was scared. He's like, what is that? Maybe UFO's or something scary or. My daughter thought it was like a meteor shower or something, but it was moving slowly and it was very consistent. But I didn't have any idea what it was. So we started looking it up on the Internet and it's starlink. It's that Elon Musk's satellite starlink for the Internet. And it's like a train in the sky. And it looks like a whole bunch of stars, basically star trains, but they're satellite dishes, but they're all linked together. So it's really unnerving when you see it. So my interruption is Starlink. If you're ever looking in the sky and you see a trail of stars moving very slowly across the night sky, they're actually satellite dishes. All right, that's it for now. [00:58:11] Speaker A: Book interrupted. [00:58:14] Speaker B: It's book report time. We're gonna find out from each member their final thoughts. And do they recommend the book. Let's listen. [00:58:21] Speaker D: We just finished the group discussion, and I'm not sure if there's much that I didn't bring up that I want to say. However, as you may know, if you follow the podcast for a while, or if you subscribe to our website or to our blog and read our manuscript Monday. Book recommendations. I love science books, and this is an example of a science book that is geared towards a broader audience. So it was really nice to be able to sit down and have everybody read my book, even though it was very long, and say that it was engaging and that they wanted to keep reading it. Because, I mean, that's the thing with a lot of the science books I read, is if you're really interested in the science, then you might find the whole thing interesting. But for some people, too much science at a time can make them lose interest. And so this one was a little bit different. For a while now, I've wanted to start my own little book club with people who choose science books like genetics and physics or whatever, and then talk about it. But whenever I bring it up with somebody, it doesn't get much traction. So I usually just end up reading the books and talking about little bits of it, or talking about it with my husband, who will let me talk at him about these things. But again, it was nice to read a book that appealed to a broader audience while still being sciency. That's about all I wanted to say. It was longer than I remember it being, but also still kept people engaged the whole time. And, oh, my goodness, I had another thumbs up on this video. Okay. So during the group discussion, I kept on getting, like, emojis come up on my screen, like thumbs up or balloons. And I think it's not a zoom thing, because it just happened on my computer. That's so weird. It must be a computer setting. I have to look into this. But if you go on our YouTube channel, the book interrupted YouTube channel, you be able to see these things that are happening on my screen. So weird. And if you know what is causing it, maybe just put it down in the comments, and then I can either get rid of it or the other members could add it if they find it delightful. Okay, thank you very much. We'll see you next time. [01:00:28] Speaker B: I just finished it. I was like. It was a real crunch. It took me, like, ten days to. [01:00:34] Speaker D: Read the whole book, and it's 400. [01:00:35] Speaker B: Pages, but it's such a good read. Like, you wouldn't. I don't know. I should say you wouldn't think a science book is can't get dry, but it was such an excellent read. She goes back and forth between the lacks family and researching Henrietta to the science behind Gila and things that they've done. So going back and forth just made her super interesting, and it made you really just love the people in this book. So I'm going to do a spoiler because I'm really upset about it because I literally just finished it this morning. I am so sad that Debra passed away before the book was published, and more importantly, passed away before she knew Oprah played her. She would just be so happy that Oprah did a movie about her mom. [01:01:26] Speaker D: Ugh. [01:01:27] Speaker B: I'm totally gonna cry during this episode when I talk to everyone else, because we're meeting in an hour, and usually I have a couple days to look. Let it all settle. But I feel really emotional about that. Everything she went through as a child and her siblings and finding out about her sister. Oh, my God, the sister's haunting me because my sister, as some of you might know, also has epilepsy. And I can't imagine that they drilled into these children's heads and drained the liquid and then did x rays. Just horrific. I still don't know how I feel. I'm kind of mad at their dad because Henrietta was like, take care of my kids, or even her cousins and stuff that were close with her. Like, you hear about the life before she died, and she took care of everyone. Like, every cousin or someone, just even from clover, anyone that came, she took care of them, fed them, let them sleep there. She just cared for everyone. And then when she died, and people just let horrible things happen to her kids, which also makes me really upset. And then science never tells the family, and then they take blood, and they think it's because they might have cancer. Like, so much. [01:02:38] Speaker D: There's so much that makes me upset about this book. [01:02:41] Speaker B: It just makes me sad. It makes me a bit sad. Anyway, this isn't a happy ending because the very end you find out Deborah dies. But I've watched some things since to get an update, and it sounds like the Lacks family are now on a board. Something like a BBC exclusive. Was talking to Rebecca Skloot and she said that they're on some sort of board for the hela cells or something, which makes me so happy. So I'm hoping Meredith knows more. You know, she loves science, so I'm hoping she knows more about that and that, like, when Covid happened, the family was the first thing they called Rebecca and were like, hey, Hila's got this. Right. So that made me feel great. But also, there's so many people that died. Like, I was really upset that Gary died, too. And Cliff. Anyway, I can't go on. On all the sadness in the last couple chapters. It blew me away. I was so sad. So do I recommend this book? 100%. It's amazing. More people need to know about the history of experiments and their. There's so much I want to talk to the different people in the group about how they feel about doctors just taking ourselves and we have no rights at all. Anyway, I recommend the book. I recommend the movie. The movie is really great. I think they did a really good job with the movie as well. Obviously, they had to cut up some things, but I think for the most part, they did a great job. It didn't go in the same order as the book, the movie. They kind of gave the different information and histories at different times, but I think it helped make the movie go. So I was happy with the way the movie was. It seemed decent. A decent job for a complicated book. Yeah, I guess that's it. I recommend. And I can't wait to talk to everyone else and hopefully not cry on the episode because of Deborah. Okay, bye. [01:04:29] Speaker F: The immortal life of Henrietta lacks. What an excellent book. I can't say enough about it. I read it on the beach when I was on holiday. I have a photo I'm going to share with Sarah to probably put up, hopefully maybe on our socials, me reading it on the beach. But just like such a well written book and a well researched book, I really appreciate that. You know, in the back, she's got the cast of characters, she has a timeline, she has acknowledgements, and then she also has notes. So all of the research that went into this book, I love that she was able to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks and get the story out there for the family. I like the story about her and the family. And I really appreciate that she started foundation. So before it was published, Rebecca Skloot established the Henrietta Lacks foundation. Some of the proceeds of the book are being donated by the author to the foundation that Henrietta Lacks foundation. So you could go to that to donate or to find out more information. I appreciate the book in general. I like the photos. I did some. Some research on it as well, just to find out more information. I loved that she really brought you into that world. That was both when Henrietta Lacks was alive and then also when she was doing that research. I feel like the descriptions really brought you to the place without being overly wordy. And you know how I hate when it's like describing something that doesn't really have a point. Make sense of why you're describing it. I know some books do that. I felt like she described the things that needed to be described so that you could put yourself in that world and understand the story without being too much. You know, it's really sad. Spoiler alert about the end, about Deborah dying before the book was published, because I think she would have. Well, I don't know, I'm hoping she would have really appreciated that this came out and that we're talking and everybody's talking about her mom and the cells. And I am going to say in the group discussion, but the family did get some money, did a settlement with people who are using the hala cells. So that's really excellent. Last year in 2023. So, yeah, highly recommend. I would probably read this. I'd never read books again, but I would probably read it again just to learn more because I think some of the scientific stuff, it would be good to read again, to really get into my head. But I just think it's a fascinating topic as well. The cell cultures and the doctors and what they did. And also how disturbing it is what they did to people of color. Yeah, I just think everyone should read this book. Go out, buy it right now or rent it. Or you rent it. No, go to the library. Get it from the library. Or buy it or listen to it on an audiobook, whatever, go do it. [01:07:18] Speaker C: I know that this season we're doing books that have been turned into movies, and I have finished this book, but I haven't started the movie or anything, but I really want to watch it because this was such a good read for me. I really enjoyed it. I think that the pacing was done well. Like it just. It feels impactful. Each sentence, I feel, was pretty needed and necessary. It's also quite a large book. I believe it's just over 400 pages, and I didn't have issues getting through it. I, like, looked forward to reading it. I read it pretty quickly, like within two weeks, which is not too bad. I just think the story is absolutely incredible. Maybe the way in which the story came about is not so ethically correct, but we got such incredible research science from this. Sometimes you have to question whether crossing moral boundaries is okay. And I feel that this book kind of teeters on that. I'm really excited to hear what the ladies have to say. Unfortunately, I will not be on this episode due to some technical difficulties, but I cannot wait to listen and hear what everyone else thinks. And if they recommend it, I will say that just because I haven't watched the movie, I wouldn't recommend the movie yet. Definitely recommend this book and this story. If you can sit down and read it, do it, because it's also a telling. I believe if this story wasn't written and I could be wrong on this, but we wouldn't have the knowledge of it. Yeah, I think this story is really, really important to our history and to science. So absolutely go out and read it if you can. Thank you. [01:08:58] Speaker A: What a good story. An important story. So that is the point of this personal journal, is that the information that Rebecca Skloot took ten years to thoroughly understand, uncover, and publicize is super important. And I think it's a great mission that she went on. We talked a lot about different things in the recent episode, the episode that you're listening to right now, that I'm now personal journaling in, and I just echo all those sentiments. It's really important that this information is out there and that Henrietta herself is recognized for the contributions that she made to science. It's insane. And I can't believe. Like, I guess we've come so far, we probably still have a really far way to go. But, like, as a society, in terms of ethics in medicine, and I kind of put it separately, like psychology, like experimenting with humans, all of it. It's just the things that happened in the past without consent or knowledge or consideration of the lives that they affected, are just sometimes really hard to believe. Anyway, I do recommend this book, as you will have heard in the podcast, and I haven't yet seen the movie, so I'll watch the movie, and maybe I'm not going to make any promises, because I always have the best intentions where I'll be like, and then I'll come and I'll make another recording and I'll tell you if I liked it or not. And then you'll never hear from me again. So we'll just leave it like that, will I or won't I? [01:10:35] Speaker B: Cliffhanger ending thank you for joining us on this episode of Book Interrupted. If you'd like to see the video highlights from this episode, please go to our YouTube channel book interrupted. You can also find our videos on www.bookinterrupted.com bookies we really want to hear from you. [01:10:56] Speaker A: Go to www.bookinterrupted.com to find out the variety of ways you can get in touch. Give us a call and leave a voicemail and we will play it on the podcast. Or write us an email and we can read it on the podcast. Or better yet, leave us a review on iTunes. Anything bookies we want to hear from you. Pretty please. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don't like. Tell us books you think we should read. Tell us about your favorite moments. Tell us anything, please. We want to know what you think. Think so don't forget that's www.bookinterrupted.com or itunes and leave us a review. We will love to hear from you. Talk to you soon. Bookies book interrupted never forget, every child matters.