Washington (AFP)
The family of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American whose cells taken without her knowledge have revolutionized modern medicine, on Thursday announced their intention to file a complaint against the pharmaceutical groups who took advantage of it.
"They've been using their cells for 70 years and the Lacks family hasn't received anything in return for this theft," her granddaughter Kimberly Lacks told a press conference.
"They treated her like a laboratory rat, as if she was not human, that she had no family," she continued, demanding "justice for this racist and unethical treatment ".
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, 31, died of cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
During attempts to treat her, cells from her tumor had been taken and transmitted to a researcher without her knowing anything.
He quickly realized that his cells, renamed HeLa cells, had extraordinary qualities: they could be cultivated in vitro, either outside the human body, and multiply ad infinitum.
They have since enabled laboratories around the world to develop vaccines - especially against polio -, cancer treatments and certain cloning techniques, an industry worth billions of dollars.
Progress of which the family of Henrietta Lacks knew nothing until the 1970s and of which it really understood the scope only thanks to the work of Rebecca Skloot, author in 2010 of the bestseller "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" .
"The Lacks family has been exploited for too long and they say it's over," her grandson Alfred Carter said, announcing that she had chosen to be represented in court by famous civil rights lawyer Ben. Crump.
Known for his defense of relatives of police victims including George Floyd, Crump said he would file a complaint on October 4 for the 70th anniversary of the disputed samples and made the connection with his other fights.
"Black lives must be given due value in America," he said in a nod to the Black Lives matter movement.
His colleague Christopher Seeger said the complaint would concern "all those who have benefited from the use of HeLa cells and who have not reached an agreement with the family to compensate for it".
In 2013, an agreement was reached between his heirs and Johns Hopkins University for two family members to sit on a committee responsible for authorizing future uses of HeLa cells.
But the agreement did not include any financial component.
"John Hopkins has never sold or benefited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to these cells," however, notes the institution on its site.
© 2021 AFP