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Happy Juneteenth! In this episode, we commemorate Juneteenth with a special focus on Henrietta Lacks, and an exclusive interview with her grandson Alfred Lacks-Carter, Jr. From the polio vaccine to IVF and COVID-19 vaccines, we owe so many of our medical developments from the past 50 years to one woman—a woman whose cells were taken and used without her permission, let alone compensation. In this riveting episode, Lacks-Carter shares an intimate family portrait of his grandmother, turning pain into purpose.
A Note to Ms. Readers
Wednesday, June 25, 2025: When we began developing this episode of On the Issues, our intention was to do a podcast about a Black woman whose cells and tissues were non-consensually appropriated by a doctor at Johns Hopkins in the 1950s and then exploited the world over through what is known as the HeLa cell line. This is a so-called “immortal” cell line that continues to reproduce, and which has been crucial to medical innovations from the polio vaccine to in-vitro fertilization and the COVID-19 vaccine. Henrietta Lacks’ legacy continues to benefit to medical research and science today.
In telling this story, we spoke to Alfred Lacks-Carter, Jr.—Henrietta Lacks’ grandson. Little did we know that we were stepping into a long-simmering controversy over who gets to tell the family’s story, how it is told, who rightfully is entitled to profit from it, and what, if anything, is owed to family members. Alfred has his own strongly held beliefs about the exploitation of his grandmother and about the success that author Rebecca Skloot achieved through the publication of her nonfiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and the subsequently-released HBO motion picture based on her book.
After the initial release of this episode, Rebecca Skloot reached out to us, to point out and request that we correct what she claimed were verifiable inaccuracies and falsehoods in Alfred’s interview statements. Rebecca has her own strongly held beliefs about these issues. Our attempts to revise the episode were unsatisfactory. But the story was never about either of them; it was about the life and legacy of Henrietta Lacks, and its goal was to honor and acknowledge her unconsented-to contribution to medicine. Sadly, it now appears that we cannot tell the story we set out to tell without taking the spotlight off the unquestioned hero of the story, Henrietta Lacks.
With deep regrets, we have therefore chosen to withdraw this episode from our podcast series.