Question

Should the family be financially compensated for the HeLa cells?

Answer 1

In the current climate of reckoning with racial injustice, some researchers who use HeLa cells have concluded that they should offer financial compensation.

The foundation awards grants both to Lacks's descendants and to family members of others whose bodies have been used without consent for research.

HeLa cells are not the only immortal cell line from human cells, but they were the first. Today new immortal cell lines can either be discovered by chance, as Lacks's were, or produced through genetic engineering.

According to some scientists, the HeLa cell line should properly be considered its own species.

Lacks was only confirmed as the source of the cells in 1973, to the surprise of her relatives. In 2001, HeLa cells were trading at $167 a vial. Her descendants have never received any money from their ancestor's gift to science.