1. The Legal Foundations of Isms
Classism, Racism, Sexism, and henrietta lacks
Melissa Shaffer-O’Connell

2. Intersectionalism

3. Majority Government and Minority Rights

4. Classism and Henrietta Lacks
“Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment” (Skloot 2010, 30).
Poverty as consent
Development of Informed Consent
Nuremburg Code of Ethics (1947)
Kefauver-Harris amendments to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act (1962)
For Henrietta
No consent to tissue sample and no information on treatment outcomes

5. Racism and Henrietta Lacks
Jim Crow laws
For Henrietta
John Hopkins was only hospital for miles that treated black patients.
Assumptions and stereotypes
For African Americans in the medical system
Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Mississippi Appendectomies

6. Sexism and Henrietta Lacks
Legal dependence
In most states, women were still legally dependent on men. They couldn’t work in most jobs, control their earnings, own property, enter into contracts, or determine when or how many children to have.
For Henrietta
Hesitance to talk about “lady parts”
“benevolent deception”
Sexism and Henrietta Lacks

7. If Henrietta was alive today…she would probably still be dead.
Classism
“Higher income was associated with longer life at all income levels. Women in the bottom 1% of the income distribution at the age of 40 years had an expected age of death of 78.8 years. Women in the top 1% had an expected age of death of 88.9 years, which is 10.1 years higher than life expectancy for women in the bottom 1%” (Chetty, et al., 2016).
Racism
”The overall death rate of African Americans in the United States today is equivalent to that of Whites in America 30 years ago” (Mays, Cochran, & Barnes 2007).
Sexism
“People are dying because they are female and doctors are blinded by their gender. Don’t assume that women are hysterical. That’s quite basic. Treat everyone as a person.” (Buckley 2018)

8. Questions? Comments?