Practically two weeks after Henrietta Lacks’ descendants reached a settlement in a lawsuit towards a biotech firm, accusing it of profiting unjustly from her cells for generations, the household’s authorized workforce has now initiated a contemporary declare towards a special company.
This new authorized motion has been directed at Ultragenyx, a biopharmaceutical firm primarily based in California. The lawsuit was formally filed on Thursday, Aug. 10, in a federal courtroom in Baltimore, the identical venue the place the earlier case was resolved.
It’s a part of a sequence of lawsuits that the authorized workforce vowed to file to hunt compensation for the exploitation of the Black mom’s organic cells. A confidential settlement was introduced on July 31 between the Lacks household and Thermo Fisher Scientific, resolving a lawsuit initially filed in 2021.
“Henrietta Lacks’ enduring legacy needs to be one in every of recognition, respect, and reparations, not additional exploitation by firms like Ultragenyx,” Legal professional Chris Seeger stated in a press release. “Their actions function a somber reminder of America’s historical past of medical racism and the urgent necessity to appropriate these previous injustices. Our lawsuit goals to empower the Lacks household to reclaim their ancestor’s narrative, and safe the justice and compensation they rightfully deserve.”
Lacks lived close to Baltimore when she was identified with cervical most cancers in 1951. She died hospital’s racially segregated “coloured ward” at 31. Throughout a biopsy, docs at Johns Hopkins Hospital retained a pattern of her most cancers cells with out her information or consent. Her genetic materials grew to become the primary human cells to constantly develop and replicate in laboratory settings.
The HeLa cells have been used for quite a few scientific and medical breakthroughs, together with the polio vaccine growth, genetic mapping, and the newest COVID-19 vaccinations.
The authorized grievance alleges that Ultragenyx has amassed important earnings by utilizing HeLa cells to create gene remedy merchandise.
It claims that Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical knowingly selected to take advantage of and mass-produce Lacks’ dwelling tissue and seeks mental property rights for these merchandise, successfully laying declare to Lacks’ genetic materials for its monetary achieve regardless of being conscious that her tissue was taken with out consent by docs at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The lawsuit accuses Ultragenyx of promoting merchandise developed utilizing the HeLa cell line to consumers throughout the nation by way of Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors, “the first platform for delivering genes utilized in treating a spread of human illnesses,” in accordance with the descendants’ authorized workforce.
“Ultragenyx’s resolution to persist in utilizing HeLa cells, regardless of their origin and the tangible hurt inflicted upon the Lacks household, can solely be interpreted as an endorsement of the enduring legacy of racial injustice embedded inside the U.S. analysis and medical programs,” lawyer Benjamin Crump stated in a press release. “Much like their exploitation of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cell line, in addition they exploit susceptible people with uncommon diseases by exorbitantly pricing important therapies.”
