Henrietta Lacks' relatives were successful in their case against a multibillion-dollar biotech business for using her smuggled cells.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. was sued by the estate for making money off of Lacks' special cells. Thermo Fisher Scientific made a deliberate decision to sell and mass-produce Henrietta Lacks' living tissue, as EUR previously reported, citing a press release from lawyer Ben Crump. This decision was made in spite of the company's knowledge that Lacks' tissue had been removed from her without her consent by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The act is viewed as a component of a plot to obtain Black women's tissue for research in racially segregated wards throughout the 1950s without their knowledge or consent.
Lacks passed away from an aggressive cervical carcinoma at the age of 31. Without her or her family's knowledge or agreement, Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors removed samples of her malignant cells before she passed away 70 years ago and gave them to researchers.
Thermo Fisher offers numerous items containing the HeLa cell line to customers all around the world, claims the family's lawsuit. Thermo Fisher Scientific has reportedly made astonishing profits in the tens of millions of dollars by utilizing the HeLa cell line over the past few years, according to the complaint, while Ms. Lacks' Estate and family have not received a penny of that money.
According to the lawsuit, according to the news release, Thermo Fisher claims intellectual property rights to these items, establishing a claim to Lacks' genetic material for its own financial gain - even though the corporation "has known that HeLa cells were stolen from Ms. Lacks."
Crump and lawyer Chris Seeger declared last week that "the family of Henrietta Lacks and Thermo Fisher have agreed to settle the litigation filed by Henrietta Lacks' Estate, in U.S. District Court in Baltimore."
"The agreement's terms will be kept private. The statement stated, "The parties are delighted that they were able to reach an agreement to handle this case outside of Court and will make no further comment on the settlement.
Crump revealed the agreement during a news conference on August 1, according to The Jasmine Brand, saying: "The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of court and will have no further comment about the settlement."