|
Post by Mini Mia on Feb 14, 2019 0:29:23 GMT -6
I'm catching up ... bbl.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Feb 16, 2019 9:44:51 GMT -6
While you are bubbling - I always "pronounce" bbl as "bubble" in my head - a bit about chapter six, "Lady's on the Phone". In it, Rebecca calls Roland Pattillo, a professor of gynecology, to see what, if anything, he knows about Henrietta, and he grills her on what she knows about African-Americans and science before he would give out information about Henrietta and the Lacks family. Skloot answers, using the "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" and "Mississippi Appendectomies" as examples of what she knows. I had never heard of either of these things - they certainly weren't taught in any history course I took, or mentioned in any textbook I've read. I was shocked, disgusted, and angered - even more so that these things happened during my lifetime! I guess living in my bubble of naivety I didn't think that stuff like that happened - or that if it did happened, it was something that took place a long, long time ago, maybe far, far away. Not in this country - and certainly not into the 70s! Because of the brief mention in the book, I drilled both "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" and "Mississippi Appendectomies" and was even more sickened and angered after reading some of the articles on these topics. There was a lot of information about the Tuskegee experiment, and I believe the researchers involved after treatment was discovered in the 40s, should have been criminally prosecuted. They not only let these men die, knowing there was an effective treatment, in turn, by not giving them treatment, they subjected the subjects' wives, girlfriends, and any children conceived to the disease. It's deplorable. Most of the information I found on Mississippi appendectomies came in articles about eugenics (of which I never heard before either, and also had to drill just to find out what the word meant), but eugenics is discussed in a later chapter, and so I won't get into that in this post. One article I came across though, titled "Mississippi Appendectomy and other stories; when silence is complicity" appears on medical humanities website; the article was written by a gynecologist. The article is not specifically about forced sterilization; it also briefly mentions both the Tuskegee study and Henrietta Lacks. It offers good insight, I think, as to how not only Henrietta may have felt, but is also gives an explanation (though it does not name them specifically) for the Lackes perceptions about the medical community as it pertains to both their own health issues and to why they feel the way they do about how the use of her cells without their knowledge was an exploitation of Henrietta. hekint.org/2018/01/10/mississipi-appendectomy-stories-silence-complicity/
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Feb 19, 2019 20:22:00 GMT -6
I had heard of both - actually I was taught about both to the point of being aware of them and what they were. Back in the 70s the AF had a massive race relations push - everyone had to go to a class and those little tidbits were included.
I had to take my book back to the library or start accumulating fines for having it too long.
There was one other another thing in the book that really bothered me. Elsie. That she was abandoned, unvisited, left to the predation of the scum running the facility where she was housed, and what they did to her. There's no excuse, no reason, and it reminded me of Nazi experiments on prisoners.
What was done to her was terrible. That Day abandoned her...what kind of parent is that?
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Feb 20, 2019 10:17:50 GMT -6
I was a kid in the 70s. In the drills I did, I read that the Tuskegee story broke in 71; I was in first grade then (it's so easy for me to remember what point of my education I was in by the calendar year, because the last number of the year corresponds with the grade I was in at the time). If I heard anything on the news, or heard my parents talking about it, I was too young to understand. Never though, was the topic discussed in school at any time during my education.
I just happened to be walking by the library the other day, remembered the book was due the following day, and since I didn't have it with me, I just popped in and extended the due date; I've got it for another three-ish weeks.
Elsie's fate really bothered me also. In the part of the book in which Deborah and Rebecca go to the facility and learn about what happened to Elsie had me in tears. It's no wonder that Deborah lost it then. The description of the photo was horrible, and I can't imagine how a person would feel seeing a family member like that. I wish for Deborah's sake that the photo and autopsy records had never been found.
Something I didn't find clearly explained is how Elsie ended up there. At one point it was said the doctors "said that sending Elsie away was the best thing" and then in the next paragraph it says that "Henrietta's cousins always said a bit of Henrietta died the day they sent Elsie away". Does that mean that Elsie was sent to the "Hospital for the Negro Insane" against Henrietta's will? Do you think the family had her committed, or could the state do that?
If Henrietta had lived could she have demanded that Elsie be discharged once she saw how bad it was getting, or was this left up to the doctors in the facility?
It's hard not to judge, but I didn't like Day, and I think he was a horrible husband and father, or at least, he came across that way. I wonder though, if it's because of what Skloot chose to include in the book, and what was left out - her research and interviews with the family can't all be included in the book; it would have been too much. Since the story was told from mainly her point of view, and Deborah's, would Day have come across differently if more about him was written, or if more of the story was told from his point of view.
For example, Elsie was in the hospital for only five years before she died there; Henrietta was alive for only one of those years. In a separate drill I read that lobotomies were a common practice in the 40s and 50s at the hospital, which was during the time Elsie was there (interestingly, many of the articles written about the place mention and quote Paul Lutz, the director that helped Rebecca and Deborah find Elsie's record; he's since become the historian of the hospital's past). If any of the "experiments" described in the book or a lobotomy was done on Elsie (either of which is very imaginable given the condition she was in when the photo was taken), would it have been too painful for Day (or any other family member) to visit - and would Elsie have even been aware if they had?
Like I said, it's hard not to judge, but it's also impossible to know exactly all that happened.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Feb 20, 2019 13:29:41 GMT -6
Oh! I just remembered one other question I had about "The Hospital for the Negro Insane" chapter.
Lutz is helping Rebecca and Deborah with Elsie's records, and up comes a bald guy from nowhere, who demands to know what they're doing. He even gets to Lutz, and he snaps back at the guy. Deborah provides birth certificates, and power of attorney as proof she has a right to Elsie's records, the bald man grabs everything including the autopsy report. The women glare at him -
- "both so furious at him for trying to stop us that neither of us realized he was one of the only hospital officials wo'd ever tried to protect the Lacks family's privacy?"
The man storms off with Lutz when Lutz goes to make photocopies for Deborah, and that's he end of him in that chapter. So who is the guy? Is Skloot just assuming he's acting like a jerk only because he's protecting the Lackses, (he didn't know who Rebecca and Deborah were when he stormed up to them, so why would she assume it was to protect the family's privacy), or is he mentioned later in the book and his intentions explained and I just missed the connection?
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Feb 26, 2019 20:39:16 GMT -6
I remember reading that area Phalon. I don't recall the exact wording, but the way it was written, I took it the guy was a ranking official of the institution, or at least a security guard. The idea that Lutz didn't challenge this person's right to check into what was happening would lend credence to that thought - it did for me. I don't remember any additional references to the man in the book, but I think the point was that he challenged them until he got proof that they had a legitimate right to see the files about Elsie. That challenge doesn't seem to have come up very often. Even Henrietta's name was provided to someone doing a story at some point.
Augh! You are such a young'un!! (I joined the AF in '71. That was the year the military got a significant pay raise - thanks to Nixon. Until then, military pay was horrible.) I have no specific memory of the exact year of the course, but I suspect it was 75 or 76. The thing I remember from that time was the person in charge of our offices. He was a black Chief Master Sergeant - an E-9 - and was in the 2nd group of people selected for that rank. Without any malice at all, he simply told me one time during a party at his house, that he would have been in the 1st group of people to achieve that high rank except for the fact that he was black.
The idea that because no one was there to protect her, they could get away with literally drilling a hole in her head to drain brain fluid do they could get a better x-ray - I don't have words that can be published in a public forum for this. And they KNEW it caused months of pain and suffering!
I remember the book saying that often only Henrietta could help Elsie. I took it that she was difficult for the rest of the family. Combined with everything else Henrietta had to deal with, I suspect Elsie's departure was the best for everyone else in the family, but not Henrietta herself. I don't remember Henrietta's health status at this point but I believe that if it were possible, Henrietta would have found a way to visit Elsie at least once or twice.
Yes, he'd be even worse. (Can you tell how I feel about him abandoning his child to this place? This, and other earlier comments about him, make me think of him in an especially dim light.)
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Feb 27, 2019 21:58:15 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Feb 27, 2019 23:05:30 GMT -6
I'm still avoiding this thread, but wanted to share the following:
If one partner strays, they bring back and share all kinds of health problems with their faithful mate. And when the faithful mate is ignorant of the straying, they don't know to protect themselves ... and then these infections have full range to cause all kinks of damage and complications before they are discovered.
Yeah. I'm probably wrong about Mom and my Aunt getting Wegener's Granulomatosis from their straying husbands ... but who is to say their bodies didn't start out fighting the stray cells, and then end up attacking their own cells? -- Men get WG too, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexually transmitted. I hope one day we find out the cause. I'd rather know that suspect.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Mar 1, 2019 7:26:02 GMT -6
That's it, I'm sure. I took him to be ranked over Lutz, but I was reading foreshadowing into it, kind of like - 'we didn't know at the time, but he was one of the only hospital officials to ever protect the Lack family'. I expected him or a reference to something more that he'd done other than to demand to see proof at that moment in time that they had a right to see Elsie's files, to show up later in the book as kind of an ah-ha moment.
The book said Henrietta did visit Elsie religiously once a week for a year until the cancer got so bad that she couldn't. Day or one of her cousins drove her - there is no mention though, that Day ever went into the hospital with Henrietta to visit Elsie himself....
Yeah, I didn't like him at all. I'm surprised actually, that he was still in the kids lives when they became adults. Strikes me as the type of person who would have bailed altogether after Henrietta died.
Interesting article; thanks for posting. The article mentioned that a lawsuit brought a $10 million settlement for the living participants of the study and their wives and children for medical benefits and burial services - that brings about one of the ethical questions about this book: Should the Lacks family have received compensation for Henrietta's cells?
I have mixed feelings about this. At the time Henrietta was being treated, cells were routinely taken for study without the patients' knowledge and without compensation, so I don't think the researchers did anything unethical for that time period. When the family found out about the cells 20 years later, HeLa had already been making millions for the companies reproducing it. While I don't necessarily think monetary compensation was due, I do think somewhere along the way, medical benefits could have been provided to the family. Ironic that their mother's cells did so much for medical advances and the kids couldn't pay for decent healthcare.
Since the cause of Wegener's Granulomatosis is unknown it's impossible to say with certainty, but if a person's immune system is busy fighting one disease, it would be reasonable, I think, to assume it'd be weakened enough to leave their body more susceptible to other diseases.
|
|
|
Post by moonglum on Mar 1, 2019 10:06:04 GMT -6
Right, laptop problems fixed, I'm back. Before you ask, Doctors appointment yesterday and we are still waiting for Vox's x-ray results. The doctor actually said, 'if we haven't heard anything, then everything is probably all right'. That's almost like saying, 'Just stick your head in the sand and it'll be all right'. Her back has been playing up something terrible and, yes, she's got another tablet to take. I feel like screaming sometimes.
Anyhoo, to catch up. What with what's been happening these last few months I really couldn't take any more of this book.
MG. I can't comment on the relationship between Henrietta and her husband. I have been faithful since the day Vox and I met. However, I realise that, as a man, I'll most likely be painted with the same brush.
Phalon. To lump you and he together in those roles is impossible, and no one, including yourself, can paint you with the same brush or in the same light. I could be wrong, Moonglum, but it sounds as if you are trying to put yourself in Henrietta's husband's shoes. Don't. It can't be done with a proper fit.
That came out a bit more caustic than it could have. I think it came from too many viewings of daytime tv. Too many tv shows full of groups of women blaming all men for everything. These last few months have been worrying and, to paraphrase Joxie, 'Sorry I was in a mood'.
MG. I reread what I wrote earlier and realised I sounded biased. It upset me a lot.
I went back and reread what I reread earlier and it still seems to me that I might have sounded as if I was lauding the accomplishments of the doctors and researchers over Henrietta. I may have been reading too much into what I said.
MG. I don't think I can read more of this book.
Phalon. As difficult as these things are to read though (I had some time waiting for BP in the orthodontist's office to read up to the end of Part One), is it a disservice not to finish? If people aren't aware of past horrendous acts does that contribute to attitudes that we find appalling but still continue in the present? I dunno. How are we to change in the present and the future if we are ignorant to the past?
Whilst I understand and see what you are saying, personally, I don't believe it's a disservice to cease something I found particularly distasteful.
Joxie. There is good and bad in both genders. Don't allow anyone to count you among those that you do not belong with. Be the shining example. Don't take on guilt that isn't yours. Joxie. Let me try this another way ... You are a writer. A great writer has empathy. A writer needs empathy to feel what their characters feel. You take on your character's deepest, darkest feelings, and you take on their highest, most ecstatic feelings. So, don't run from the strong emotions this book brings out in you. Learn from this book what you need in order to bring your female characters to life. You must get inside of the heads/minds of women, and you must feel what women feel ... if you want to be true to your female characters. -- So, write down all of the emotions this book brings out in you, and use it for fodder for your characters. But, in the real world, just be sure to separate yourself from the guilt of all of the things outside of your control. Put it on your characters. Those it applies to. Use what you're feeling in your work to put a spotlight on it, and hopefully bring about change. And show that no two women or no two men are identical.
I'm not sure I can answer this Joxie, leastways not easily. I don't run from strong emotions. I am a very emotional person. I get tearful watching animal charity advertisements that show the harm done to them and then get angry at the mindless people that commit those acts. I try to convey emotions in my characters, both male and female. Whether I get it right or not, I don't know. With the exception of one or two people, it's frustrating not having my writing commented on. The side-effect of that is I tend to shrug my shoulders and just write for my self, but that's not growing, is it?
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Mar 2, 2019 12:26:22 GMT -6
Don't blame you for feeling like screaming! It's so frustrating sometimes - you wait, and wait anxiously for to hear something from doctors, only to be told basically to 'wait not to hear anything'.
I think I may have been talking (writing) aloud when I wrote that kind of from a personal standpoint. It's just like you mentioned about your interpretation about what the Vox's doctor said - "Just stick your head in the sand and it'll be all right".
I don't understand racism; I honestly don't get how people can hate so much, and it makes me ill that it is still so widespread in this country. I'm white, and have never experienced it in a way that a person from another race will, but I have experienced it secondhand - if there is such a thing. By that, I mean I've seen it, it's affected people I care about and conversely, people I've cared about have said and done things that would be considered racist - some of it not so in-your-face, most of it very unintentional. I never quite know what to say when it occurs, other than redirecting the conversation. I can think of a million ways to handle a situation afterward, but at the time, I change the topic, and to me that feels like I'm 'sticking my head in the sand'.
What's worse - I guess, to mean what eats at my conscience because I tend to avoid confrontation - is that I know many of these people would be appalled to think that they've done or said racist things. It's that unintentional racism that I feel can be addressed by learning more, thus being in some ways better equipped maybe, and as uncomfortable as it is, to have open conversations about it.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Mar 9, 2019 4:59:48 GMT -6
I'm reading the book. Jotting down stuff in a notebook. I'll join this thread later on.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Mar 15, 2019 12:30:24 GMT -6
Not so sure how good my memory is as I only had a vague picture of it in my head - and I'm not even sure why it popped into my head! - but at least you've confirmed that I wasn't making it up (at the same time as the M*A*S*H episode unexpectedly entered my brain, a similar dusty memory of an "All in the Family" episode came through the cobwebs also, but I could be making that one up entirely, just because it seems like how the bigot, Archie Bunker, would react to receiving blood from a black person).
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Mar 15, 2019 12:55:29 GMT -6
There is a movie, "Miss Evers' Boys," that deals with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
I'm reading over my notes, and they're just random thoughts with no rhyme or reason. Not sure they'd make any sense if I were to post them.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Mar 31, 2019 21:55:22 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Apr 1, 2019 14:45:59 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Apr 5, 2019 17:35:16 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by stepper on May 21, 2019 19:54:06 GMT -6
Another one of the books in the hat will be out as a movie this summer. THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN Official Trailer
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on May 21, 2019 22:16:25 GMT -6
Looks like a good movie.
|
|