Essay --

Social constructionism was the theory described by Joel Best that explains how things in life become controversies or problems. The ways in which society thinks about situations and uses categories to analyze events in the world structures experiences and understandings of these events. Humans look at events beyond an objectivist approach, and instead subjectively, affected by the framework in which one lives. The social constructionist theory can be used to look at the relationship between science and the people that it serves, illustrated in Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died from cervical cancer in the 1950s. She sought treatment at Johns Hopkins hospital, where she visited many times and eventually passed away. During visits, her cells were taken without her consent, and given to scientist George Gey. Gey quickly realized that Henrietta’s cells were not like other cells that he had grown in his laboratory; they had the ability to grow exponentially in a cell culture, known as HeLa, and soon became seen as immortal cells. Not only that, the cells soon became one of the most prolific resources in medical research, having a major impact in the development of polio vaccines, cloning, gene mapping, and much more. HeLa became a medical controversy, not only because it helped the science world achieve so much, but also because of the ethical quandaries that it developed. Social construction can be used to help explain how HeLa cells became famous in general. According to the theory, primarily claims must be made about something. Then, the media will eventually circulate said claims, which will eventually garner a public reaction. This would lead to policies ... ...Henrietta’s life, informed consent was very informal and lax. But because of cases like HeLa and Mo, informed consent became recognized to be a problem that needed to have strict guidelines and therefore has become required. Looking at the social construct theory, the HeLa cells became viewed as controversial, which in the end made the public find other cases in its nature controversial as well, and needing guidelines to regulate scientific research. Evaluating the current policies, clearly some still believe that there needs to be more guidelines, and others believe that things such as tissue and other biological materials should considered to be under the ownership of the person whom it came from. What the social construct can say about the story of Henrietta, HeLa, and Mo shows just how influential the society is in constructing values, practices, and traditions.