From Salman Hameed of Irtiqa:

Here is a fascinating Fresh Air interview with Rebecca Skloot. Her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is getting glowing reviews and touches on issues of science, ethics, race, and religion. Here is some background:

In 1951, an African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. She was treated at Johns Hopkins University, where a doctor named George Gey snipped cells from her cervix without telling her. Gey discovered that Lacks’ cells could not only be kept alive, but would also grow indefinitely.
For the past 60 years Lacks’ cells have been cultured and used in experiments ranging from determining the long-term effects of radiation to testing the live polio vaccine. Her cells were commercialized and have generated millions of dollars in profit for the medical researchers who patented her tissue.
Lacks’ family, however, didn’t know the cell cultures existed until more than 20 years after her death.

The entire interview is gripping and the book looks terrific.
Check out the segment about 26 minutes in, about a faith-healing episode. This is timely as I just railed against “faith healers”—who deny medical help to children in favor of prayers. However, the episode recounted here makes things more complicated. Faith healing is clearly providing psychological relief to someone (Henrietta Lacks’ daughter) who believes in the actions of the healer. Interestingly, this particular episode becomes important not only for Lacks’ daughter, but also for Skloot herself (not as a believer in faith healing, but in the context of the story she’s investigating). This again highlights the complex role of belief and religion in society. But then we also clearly know the dangers of reliance on faith healers—this can become lethal if available medicine is ignored in favor of prayer exclusively. What if people are taking medicine and are also relying on faith healing? These are difficult issues. Skloot’s book deals in more detail with this particular episode, and I’m looking forward to reading it.