BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2024: Honors Black American women in medical research and clinical practices
AGN.News Team
February 28, 2024
WASHINGTON (AGN.News) – Black History Month 2024 highlights the accomplishments of Black American women who stepped forward to make America the world’s leading contributor to great medical disciplines and innovations in the world’s medical community.
When America needed help to solve many medical problems, African Americans women came forward to help grow the medical profession. When medical doctors needed Black women to step up, women like Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler came forward in medicine, healthcare, education, maternal and pediatric medical care. She became an authority as a local and national leader.
Contributions to healthcare
Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895) was born in Delaware and was known as Rebecca Davis. She became an American physician. She was a graduate of New England Female Medical College in 1864.
Dr. Crumpler became the first African American woman to become a Doctor of Medicine in the United States. She was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century.
In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that covers the prevention and cure of infantile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings.
Dedicated to nurses and mothers, the book focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was one of the first publications written by an African American on the subject of medicine.
Her accomplishments in the field of medicine at the time was a great achievement for an African American woman. On top of that, the idea of a Black women writing and publishing a book for the medical profession was a great asset for future clinicians.
See faced “intense racism” according to fellow colleagues. Her inner strength carried her through those times, and she went on to be honored by many Americans in medicine.
The legacy of Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Boston, Massachusetts has a walking trail called Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. Dr. Crumpler’s home on joy street is a stop on the trail. On February 8, 2021, the city of Boston declared the day “Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day” as part of the 190th anniversary of her birth.
In 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared March 30 (National Doctors Day) the “Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day”.
Dr. Crumpler was a medical trailblazer at a time when many men in medicine believed that nearly immutable difference in average brain size between men and women explained the difference in social and intellectual attainment. Because of this many male physicians did not respect Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions.
Over time, women in medicine have proved those ideas were absolutely wrong. Women from all racial, social, economic, or national backgrounds have made those antiquated ideas find a new home in the dustbin of historical facts.
Today, it’s been reported that Black Women make up little less than 3% of doctors today. In 2010, there were 209,000 primary care physicians in the United States with African American women in medical professions on the rise since 2019 due to ever increasing efforts to multiply their representation.
Henrietta Lacks’ Immortalized Cell Line
Henrietta Lacks (August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) was an African American housewife, born in Roanoke, Virginia and worked as a tobacco farmer. She passed on at the age of 31 from cancer. Her cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line.
What is the HeLa cell line? The HeLa cell line is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest human cell line and one of the most commonly used. This immortalized cell line taken from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, from Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five, after whom the line is named. She died of cancer on October 4, 1951.
HeLa cells are durable and prolific, allowing for extensive applications in scientific study. A cell biologist found they could be kept alive, thus immortal, and developed the cell line. Prior to the discovery of the HeLa cell line, other human cells would only survive for only a few days. When the biologists examined Lacks’ cells they found, for the first time in the history of humanity, cells that could live into immortality.
How were the HeLa cells found? In early 1951, Henrietta Lacks was admitted to John Hopkins Hospital with symptoms of irregular vaginal bleeding and was treated for cervical cancer. A clinician collected tissue samples from her cervix without her consent, which was common at the time.
Her cervical biopsy supplied samples of tissue for clinical evaluation and research by Dr. George Gey, head of the Tissue Culture Laboratory. After culturing the cells, it was observed that the cells grew robustly, doubling every 20-24 hours, unlike previous specimens, which died out.
This was the first human cell line to prove successful in vitro, also known as “test tube experiments”. For the benefit of science, Dr. Gey freely gave those cells and the tools and processes that his lab developed to any scientist who requested them.
At that time, neither Henrietta Lacks nor her family had given permission for her cells to be harvested nor distributed. In fact, there was no prohibition on sharing since, at the time all discarded material or material obtained through surgery were considered the property of the physician or the medical institution. Therefore, neither Henrietta lacks nor her family knew her cells were immortal and shared around the world.
Her cells were named for her using the first two letters in her first and last name, He+La, thus the HeLa cell line. It was over 20 years, in the 1970s, that her family knew about the HeLa cell line being named after her. All long it was assumed the line was named for a “Helen Lane” or “Helen Larsen”.
The truth was leaked to the public that set the record straight – so Henrietta Lacks could or would be the true source of the HeLa cell line. Today, the history of the HeLa cell line and the millions of lives that have been saved because of the immortal HeLa cells came from an African American woman name Henrietta Lacks.
Her story serves as a powerful symbol of the importance of informed consent in science regardless of the race of the individuals involved.
Henrietta Lacks Recognized in History
Today, in Clover, Virginia there is a roadside historical marker memorializing Henrietta Lacks.
In Baltimore, Maryland there is a park named in honor of Henrietta Lacks.
In 1996, Morehouse School of Medicine held its first annual HeLa Women’s health Conference. The conference gave recognition to Henrietta Lacks, her cell line, and “the valuable contribution made by other African Americans to medical research and clinical practice”.
The mayor of Atlanta declared the first day of the conference, October 11, 1996, “Henrietta Lacks Day”.
In 2011, Morgan State University in Baltimore granted Henrietta Lacks a posthumous honorary doctorate in public service.
Also in 2011, the Evergreen School District in Vancouver, Washington, named their new high school focused on medical careers, the Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School, becoming the first organization to memorialize her publicly by naming a school in her honor.
In 2014, Henrietta Lacks was inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame.
In 2017, a minor planet in the main asteroid belt was named “359426 Lacks” in her honor.
In 2020, Lacks was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
In 2021, the United States government honored Lacks by creating and passing a federal law in her honor called the Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act of 2019.
In October 2021, the University of Bristol (Bristol, England) unveiled a statue of Lacks at Royal Fort House in the city. This sculpture, created by Helen Wilson Roe, was the first statue of a Black woman made by a Black woman for a public space in the United Kingdom.
On December 19, 2022, it was announced that a bronze statue honoring Henrietta Lacks would be erected in Roanoke, Virginia’s Henrietta Lacks Plaza. It was unveiled on October 4, 2023.
On June 13, 2023, Loudoun County Public Schools Board members approved the name of the new school, Henrietta Lacks Elementary school in Aldie, Virginia. It will serve 960 students when it opens in August 2024.
Members of the Lacks family authored their own stories for the first time in 2013, when Lack’s oldest son and his wife, Lawrence and Bobbette Lacks wrote a short digital memoir called “HeLa Family Stories: Lawrence and Bobbette”, with first-hand accounts of their memories of Henrietta Lacks when she was alive and their own efforts to keep her youngest children out of unsafe living environments following their mother’s death.
Black History Month Honors Black American women who contributed to advances in medical history and the sciences. These women, documented in medical history, helped make America a global leader in medical research, clinical practices, and health care.
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