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Documentary, The Way of All Flesh: by Adam Curtis
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00:00Down, down, down they go, into the darkness of the grave, gently they go, the beautiful,
00:28the tender, the kind, quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave, I know, but I do not approve, and I am not resigned.
00:46In 1951, a woman died in Baltimore, in America. She was called Henrietta Lacks.
00:53These are cells from her body. They were taken from her just before she died. They have been growing and multiplying ever since.
01:01There are now billions of these cells in laboratories around the world. If massed together, they would weigh 400 times her original weight.
01:09These cells have transformed modern medicine, but they also became caught up in the politics of our age.
01:17They shaped the policies of countries and of presidents. They even became involved in the Cold War,
01:23because scientists were convinced that in her cells lay the secret of how to conquer death.
01:30In 1860, a plantation owner in Virginia, called Benjamin Lacks, took a black mistress from among his workers.
01:52She bore him two children. They took their father's name, and for three generations, the Lacks family worked in the fields.
02:02Then, in 1942, his great granddaughter, Henrietta Lacks, decided to move to the city.
02:09She took her husband and family to Baltimore. It was war time, and there was money to be made.
02:15She was known to all her friends as Henny. Oh, my goodness. I don't think I could top her. Henny was a beautiful girl.
02:25I was beautiful myself. I called myself back in them days. But Henny was very, very pretty. Beautiful face, round face.
02:36And I used to mire her dressing, because she used to dress real fancy. I dressed good, too. But she had a husband, and she could fold fine dressing.
02:46And she lacked pretty things. She likes nice things.
02:53The cells stop growing. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes something happens to start them growing again, uncontrolled, dividing again.
03:05Dividing again. Outlaws. Pressing on healthy tissues. Healthy organs. Growing, spreading throughout the body to start new, malignant colonies.
03:17This is cancer.
03:22Six miles away from where Henrietta lived was the laboratory of Dr George Guy.
03:28Dr Guy's ambition was to rid the world of cancer.
03:31He was convinced that the secret of how to do this lay inside the human cell.
03:36For 20 years, he had been trying to grow human cells in test tubes.
03:41Dr Guy's simple dream was to be the first to successfully sustain the growth of human cells outside the body.
03:52So that in test tubes, the secret of cancer cause could be exposed. And once exposed, altered and corrected.
04:03The key, Dr Guy believed, was to feed the cells on chicken blood.
04:08He did this by drawing blood from the heart of live chickens.
04:11He then mixed it with cancer tissue taken from patients in Baltimore's main hospital.
04:19His aim was to persuade the cancer cells to keep growing outside the body.
04:24Each time he filmed the results.
04:27But every attempt failed.
04:29After a few days, the cells always died.
04:31Then, on February the 1st, 1951, Henrietta Lacks was taken to Baltimore's main hospital.
04:40She had been sent to see a gynaecologist.
04:44I just happened to be the one who saw her when she first came in.
04:48And her history was very simple.
04:53She had had some intermenstrual spotting and bleeding.
04:58Which is a sign of cancer, but it can be a sign of other things, too.
05:03She was generally fine.
05:05There was no difficulty with the general examination.
05:08But on examination of the cervix, by the eye, with a suitable instrument, I was extremely impressed.
05:21And I can see that lesion today because it was not like an ordinary cancer.
05:27This was different. This didn't look like cancer.
05:30It was purple and it bled very easily on touching.
05:33I'd never seen anything that looked like it.
05:36And I don't think I've seen anything that looked like it since.
05:38So it was a very special, different kind of what turned out to be a tumor.
05:45Cancer?
05:47As usual, a small piece of the cancerous tissue was cut off and taken to Dr. Guy.
05:52I was eating lunch.
05:55We always ate lunch right in the laboratory next to the mouse cages.
05:58And a doctor guy came in with a Petri dish.
06:02And he said that there was a specimen to put into culture.
06:06And what he had left me was a chunk of tumor tissue.
06:11And I took my scalpels like this.
06:15These were sterile.
06:17And the tissue would be in a Petri dish like this.
06:20And you just cut it up.
06:22Just like you're cutting up some meat.
06:24And then you added, according to his formula, so many drops of chicken plasm.
06:31Just like I had done all the others.
06:33And, lo and behold, it grew.
06:37Henrietta Lacks' cells began to do what Guy had dreamed of.
06:41They started to grow in his laboratory.
06:44This is the film he took of their first week's growth.
06:47Henrietta was sick.
06:48She was sick.
06:49You could hear her sometime all the way downstairs, Holly.
06:50Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.
06:51I can't get no ease.
06:52Her stomach would be hurting her so bad.
06:53Jesus, help me.
06:54Help me.
06:55I didn't never hear nobody say that she had cancer.
06:57Nobody.
06:58You know that was a secret word one time.
07:00People had cancer.
07:01They didn't talk about it.
07:02They didn't talk about it.
07:03They didn't talk about it.
07:04They was afraid.
07:05These are Henrietta Lacks' cells, filmed six weeks later.
07:07Each cell is now dividing every 20 hours.
07:09For any cancer, it was a record growth rate.
07:11The cell's exhibit is, you know, the cell is now dividing every 20 hours.
07:14For any cancer, it was a record growth rate.
07:16The cells exhibited the same growth in the test tube as they exhibited in her, namely that
07:37they were unstoppable and continued to grow in a very special way.
07:42So it was the first human cell line.
07:47Her tumor, incidentally, did not respond well to treatment.
07:52Henrietta Lacks died on October the 4th, 1951.
07:57Tonight, we will learn why scientists believe that cancer can be conquered.
08:03That same evening, Dr. Guy appeared on a television science program to show off his breakthrough.
08:08Now let me show you a bottle in which we have grown massive quantities of cancer cells.
08:17As he held Henrietta Lacks' cells up to the camera, his assistant was in the autopsy room.
08:23Dr. Guy had sent her to get more of the precious cells from the dead body.
08:27And I was all alone with my petri dish.
08:32And I walked in and she was all completely open.
08:36And just, you could look in and see tumor everywhere on all the tissues.
08:45And her bladder was one complete solid mass of tumor.
08:50We will show you some actual pictures of colonies in a test tube of cancer cells such as those I just showed you.
09:03It is quite possible that from fundamental studies such as these, that we will be able to learn a way by which cancer can be completely wiped out.
09:16Henrietta Lacks' body was taken back south to be buried.
09:20Dr. Guy kept what he had done a secret from her family.
09:24He was worried they might sue him.
09:26He gave the cells a code name, HeLa, H-E-L-A, and told everyone they came from a woman called Helen Lane.
09:35Henrietta Lacks was forgotten by science.
09:38But her cells were about to become world famous.
09:42For the first time, anything could be tested on living human cells.
09:47Her cells were sent into space, accompanied by two white mice.
09:51The aim was to find out what would happen to human flesh in zero gravity.
09:57Cosmetic companies bought millions of her cells to test for possible side effects in their new products.
10:04The American military placed large flasks of HeLa cells next to atomic tests.
10:10They wanted to see what the effects of radiation would be on human tissue.
10:15And then came polio.
10:18HeLa cells were the perfect host on which to grow and study the polio virus.
10:23From this came the development of the vaccine that conquered the disease.
10:28And polio raised a further question.
10:31Might cancer too be caused by a virus?
10:34And if it was, could it too be cured?
10:38It was hoped in the 50s that a virus could be discovered that had been a major cause of cancer.
10:48And a vaccine developed to that virus to control cancer.
10:55And because Henrietta Lacks' cells were cancerous, they had to have the secret of what cancer was and how you could kill it.
11:05The first step was to find out whether, like polio, cancer was infectious.
11:10Two scientists went to a maximum security prison in Ohio.
11:14They took with them large quantities of Henrietta Lacks' cells.
11:19This is the first suspension that we'll be using this morning.
11:24And down at the bottom here you can see quite a pellet of concentrated cancer cells.
11:31This material, the suspension of cells, will then be taken up into a tuberculin syringe
11:38and merely injected underneath the skin of the forearm through an area that has been anesthetized with novocaine.
11:45They were inoculating them with HeLa cells under the skin to see if the HeLa cells would grow and cause a cancer.
11:54It seemed a very eminently reasonable thing to do.
11:57How else are you going to find out if HeLa cells in fact do, you know, spread and cause cancer?
12:04Why did you volunteer for this?
12:06My grandmother, my father both died of cancer.
12:10I believe that the wrong that I have done in the eyes of society might, this might make a right on it.
12:18I don't know.
12:19Some of the prisoners developed small tumours, but not full-blown cancer.
12:23The results were inconclusive.
12:25When they cut out the lower one on my arm, you can see here, the top one they called me back after 14 days,
12:32and it did not have to be removed, it had died out in my system.
12:35So that is, they think that there is, that's what they're trying to find, immunity to it.
12:40But then other evidence emerged that seemed to prove there really might be a cancer virus.
12:46Henrietta Lacks was no longer alone in the cell world.
12:50Suddenly it seemed very easy to grow cells outside the body.
12:55Some were cancerous, others were normal.
12:58This is a heart cell growing inside a petri dish.
13:01Each cell is beating with the same rhythm as the heart from which it came.
13:07Out of this original push, attempts now proliferated everywhere to grow human cells,
13:14and many of them were successful.
13:16By God, they had cells from lung, and they had cells suddenly growing rapidly from a variety,
13:23a whole spectrum of human tissues.
13:26I had prostate surgery, and since the prostate grows so well in the body,
13:32I thought, well, it should be able to grow pretty well in our laboratory.
13:36So I made arrangements to have the surgeon cut off a piece of the prostate that is removed,
13:42mince it up with scissors, very fine, sharp scissors, in a sterile glass vessel.
13:47Because the finer you mince, the better you have, the better chance you have
13:53of getting a better yield of cells.
13:59In the hunt to start new cell lines, other cell biologists turn to their own families.
14:03I decided that I would try to establish a cell line from the amnion at the birth of one of my children.
14:13And on the day of my daughter's birth, I appeared with my wife and the collecting materials,
14:18which I gave to the nurse, and the material was duly collected.
14:22I took it back to the laboratory after assuring myself that my wife and new daughter were healthy.
14:28And within a few hours, I could look through the microscope and see the cells from my daughter's amnion.
14:32Then the strangest thing began to happen.
14:36Many of the normal cell lines suddenly developed cancer.
14:40Normal cells lying open in the laboratory would abruptly transform into malignant cancer cells.
14:46It became known as spontaneous transformation.
14:49I observed in the culture an island of cells that looked different from the normal cell population.
15:01Because of my experience with cells by that time, I knew that this was what we then called a spontaneous transformation.
15:08That is, the spontaneous acquisition of cancer cell properties by a normal cell in culture.
15:15There was now a growing belief that inside malignant cell lines like Henrietta Lacks' was a cancer virus.
15:21If it could be found and isolated, cancer would be conquered.
15:25But it was going to take a great deal of money.
15:32Help came from a woman called Mary Lasko.
15:34She was a millionaire society hostess in New York.
15:38I think this is one of the most exciting still lifes that Matisse ever did.
15:42It's full of colour and warmth.
15:44I have some pictures here by Cezanne and Manet and Ranmar.
15:49Lasko's husband had died of cancer.
15:52Since then, she had devoted herself to a crusade.
15:55She wanted the government to fund a vast project like the space program to cure cancer.
16:01Believe it or not, the amount of money that's being spent for medical research is, well, it's just fiddling.
16:09And you won't believe this.
16:11Less is spent on cancer research than we spend on chewing gum.
16:15But cancer was low on the political agenda.
16:19To persuade the politicians, Mary Lasko needed to find the promise of a simple cure.
16:25Then, one of her scientist friends, Matilda Crim, told her about the virus cancer theory.
16:31To Mary Lasko, the virus theory of cancer was very exciting when she heard of it.
16:36It seemed to offer a point of attack to the cancer problem, you know.
16:42Knowing the enemy is always useful.
16:48She called me one day and she says,
16:51Matilda, we have to push this campaign for cancer research
16:56because this is something the public will be in favour of.
17:00Everybody is afraid of cancer.
17:02We together started this campaign for cancer research.
17:06I'm Bing Crosby and I am on stage.
17:10And that means the show has begun.
17:15Lasko and Crim turned to Hollywood.
17:17They persuaded the stars to appear in network television shows.
17:21Their job was to speak publicly about the thing of which everyone was terrified.
17:25Today, I'm 53 years old.
17:30I have a family consisting of six kids and a wife whom I adore.
17:40And I also have lung cancer.
17:44You are nobody till somebody loves you.
17:54Their other task was to broadcast the confident promises of the scientists.
17:58Their most body cares.
18:00It is my belief that we are now witnessing the beginning of a great explosion of knowledge about this disease,
18:05which will culminate in its complete control.
18:08Even if I'm gone when you see me speak these words to you,
18:13let me join you in this crusade.
18:17And let's make this world a world that's cancer free.
18:23But at the very moment when the stars were promising the end of cancer,
18:30the cell biologists realized there was something seriously wrong with their science.
18:35And the reason was Henrietta Lacks and her cells.
18:42It began when a scientist called Stanley Gartler examined many of the major cell lines.
18:47He discovered that all of them secreted the same form of enzyme.
18:52It was a type found only in black people.
18:55The problem was that all the cell lines he looked at came from whites.
18:59The only black cell line was Henrietta Lacks.
19:03At a packed meeting of cell biologists, Gartler announced the inescapable conclusion.
19:08He told them, folks, cell lines that are presumably derived from other tissues in different individuals
19:16are not such.
19:17These are cells from Henrietta Lacks.
19:20If you think you have been working with breast cells, you're wrong.
19:24If you think you've been working with lung cells, you're wrong.
19:27And kidney cells, you're wrong.
19:28You're working with cells derived from a human female uterus.
19:32And that's that.
19:34And it was very embarrassing and it was very shocking to many people.
19:38And there was a great alarum.
19:40I couldn't believe it.
19:41He was saying that this enzyme is present only among blacks.
19:47So, ergo, this tissue did not come from you.
19:51You're white.
19:52It must have come from black.
19:54If it came from black, it probably came from helus.
19:57So you mixed your cells with helus.
20:00Whether he's, I say he's wrong.
20:03I say he's wrong.
20:05Many of the cell biologists refused to believe Gartler.
20:09But for those who had developed cell lines from their own flesh and blood,
20:13the only other explanation was even worse.
20:16What Gartler was saying about my daughter's cells was that they were,
20:23had enzyme characteristics of a black parent.
20:26Which is the reason I ran to the telephone to speak with my wife.
20:32And she assured me that I had nothing to worry about.
20:38I'm not black and neither is my wife.
20:41Leonard Hayflick never, he never believed what he was hearing.
20:43In his particular case because it involved his own blood, his own cells.
20:54It involved, really, to get down to a cellular level,
20:56it involved his own sperm and that of the egg of his wife.
21:00To me it had absolutely no importance whatsoever, other than my intellectual curiosity.
21:05Bogus.
21:07It was, um, it was, um, a scandal.
21:12It was, uh, to put it mildly, something terribly, terribly wrong.
21:17The problem was that no one fully understood how Henrietta Lacks' cells
21:23had contaminated the other cell lines.
21:25There was something wrong in cell biology,
21:28but no one knew how big or quite what the problem was.
21:31Meanwhile, Mary Lasker had succeeded with her campaign.
21:38She had got to the President.
21:40Mary Lasker made of cancer a subject to which politicians had to pay attention.
21:47The President is here, ladies and gentlemen.
21:50And she would go to, to the White House, either alone,
21:54or as a guest at the big dinner,
21:57and so she pulled out her little notebook
21:58and she read the numbers to the President.
22:01How many dead, how many sick, how much it costs.
22:05And she would say to Johnson,
22:07in no time we're going to discover tumor-inducing viruses in humans
22:11and we should have a vaccine against these viruses.
22:14You know, that's power.
22:17And he performed perfectly.
22:18Someday, I hope, and I'm going to pray for,
22:29that we will find a cure for cancer.
22:33And I want it done in my time.
22:36I want to play my part in it.
22:39I want to do something about it.
22:40The loneliest moment I ever had in my life was when I learned that my mother was gone from me
22:50because of this terrible disease.
22:53Politicians now vied with each other to find a relative who had died of cancer.
22:57My favourite aunt, my aunt Elizabeth, died with cancer when she was just 32 years of age.
23:05She was a wonderful person for withering away with cancer.
23:09In 1971, Mary Lasker triumphed.
23:12She persuaded President Nixon to announce a national war on cancer.
23:16I will also ask for an appropriation of an extra 100 million dollars
23:23to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer.
23:27And I will ask later for whatever additional funds can effectively be used.
23:32The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort
23:38that split the atom and took man to the moon
23:42should be turned toward conquering this dread disease.
23:44The promise Nixon held out to the American people was an end to cancer.
23:54Millions of dollars were to be given to the scientists
23:57who promised they could find the cancer virus.
24:00It was the biggest medical research programme ever organised.
24:05And at its heart were the cell lines.
24:08But those in charge of the cell lines knew there was a problem with contamination.
24:16They appointed a scientist, Walter Nelson Rees, to investigate just how bad the problem was.
24:22We began to probe and to investigate, purposely looking, not necessarily purposely looking for a mistake,
24:32but wanting to know the details of individual cells.
24:35And what did you begin to find?
24:36And what we began to find was that many, many, many of these cell lines, I mean, eventually over 100 cell lines were alike.
24:44And we're alike.
24:47And we're alike to HeLa.
24:49Nelson Rees discovered that HeLa had a power unlike any other cell line.
24:54If just one HeLa cell was dropped by mistake into another culture,
24:59or blown across the laboratory by a current of air,
25:02this cell would begin to grow and multiply faster than its host.
25:06It represented what cancer was dreaded for.
25:12A single cell has gone awry.
25:15It grows uncontrolled.
25:17And the problem was to become much worse.
25:21Nelson Rees discovered HeLa cells in places where it didn't seem possible.
25:26Building 41 was the most secure laboratory in the world.
25:30It had airlocks and a special ventilation system.
25:32It had been built to contain the deadly cancer virus when it was found.
25:37Nelson Rees examined a breast cell line being used inside the building.
25:42He was convinced it had been contaminated by HeLa, but this was impossible.
25:47HeLa cells have never been allowed inside Building 41.
25:51Walter Nelson Rees contacted me one day and said he had gotten his line from somebody who got it from me.
25:58And he said basically that they're HeLa cells, they're not breast cells at all.
26:06The reason I was so suspicious of its being HeLa cells is we didn't have HeLa cells in our lab.
26:14And I really couldn't see how it was possible.
26:15But HeLa had got into Building 41 in disguise.
26:20Other cell lines already contaminated had been brought in from outside.
26:25No one knew that these were infected by HeLa.
26:28But then Nelson Rees discovered something even more alarming.
26:32He examined what was believed to be the original stock of the breast cell line, HBT3.
26:36He found that even these were all HeLa.
26:41There had never been any breast cells at all.
26:44We had several freezes of HBT3 and we tested every one of them and they were all HeLa cells.
26:50The inescapable conclusion is that the first cell that landed in that Petri dish to grow was a HeLa cell.
26:56So had you ever managed to grow a breast cell?
27:00No sir, never did.
27:03Kind of got out of the business very quickly after this happened.
27:07Why is she so powerful?
27:09That I can't answer.
27:11One just simply does not know what the constitution is of HeLa cells.
27:15One does not know what the constitution is.
27:19Why it is that in spite of insults, human insults, insults in culture, temperature changes,
27:30letting them lie overnight on the counter without being intubated,
27:34there will always be a HeLa cell growing.
27:36What Nelson Rees had discovered began to undermine the war on cancer.
27:40At its headquarters in the suburbs north of Washington, urgent meetings were held.
27:46If Nelson Rees was right, hundreds of the cell lines on which the whole program depended were contaminated.
27:52It meant that all the research done using these lines was suspect.
27:57Was he right?
27:59Of course he was right.
28:01And it turned out later, you know, when we took all the cooperating laboratories and went back and looked at everything,
28:08we found out it was right.
28:12How serious is that?
28:14Well, I would say that virtually all of the scientific conclusions that I reached are worthless.
28:21It is devastating, ultimately, to have wasted three years, four years on the wrong cells.
28:29If your entire program was built upon the study of specifically what's going on in your cell system,
28:35you're working with the wrong cell line, it's comparable to thinking you're living in a palace,
28:41and actually you're living in a log cabin somewhere.
28:44It's not just that this culture was contaminated with HeLa,
28:47it's that the entire scientific community, in one way or another,
28:52is contaminated with the wrong information, with the wrong results, and with no advance.
28:58It was becoming clear that the scientists had completely misunderstood the evidence in front of their eyes.
29:08Some now began to question the original theory of spontaneous transformation.
29:13It said that cells spontaneously turned into cancer in the laboratory because of a virus.
29:18But maybe the cancer had not been caused by a virus.
29:23Maybe it had simply been a contamination by HeLa.
29:27Could this mean there was no such thing as the cancer virus?
29:31But then, the Russians found the cancer virus.
29:41In November 1972, an American delegation of scientists visited Moscow.
29:46The Russians told them that they had found the human cancer virus in five different cell lines.
29:53It was the breakthrough.
29:54Well, they were claiming they had discovered the human cancer virus.
30:01That this was a human tumor virus growing in human cancer cells isolated from different organs.
30:07And there were, like, five different laboratories in Moscow that had the similar claim.
30:13As simple as that.
30:15It's possible that the Russians had this, and they thought it's possible that they had it.
30:18Politically, it would have been a tremendous thing for them.
30:21It would have been a true finding.
30:25It would have truly established them in the eyes of all the world.
30:30That, indeed, they were the first to isolate a human tumor virus.
30:34Which we were looking for.
30:36Which we were working toward all of these years of the virus cancer program.
30:40It was a proud moment for the Russians.
30:43They sent samples of the five cell lines to the Americans.
30:45All their visitors could offer in return was a box containing viruses that caused cancer in animals.
30:51National Institute of Health USA.
30:52And in there, there are viruses of animals.
30:53And in there, there are viruses of animals, viruses of animals,
31:06all of which all of the research were produced in that time.
31:11These are mice and viruses in this box.
31:14And here are viruses of cow, cow, cow.
31:17This virus, this virus, this virus...
31:18How did you say about this virus?
31:20Very good.
31:22Well, it's wonderful.
31:23Well, this is from my heart.
31:28The Americans immediately flew the Russian cells back to Washington.
31:32They were taken in great secrecy to the headquarters of the war on cancer.
31:36Our purpose was to test their viruses and their cells for the known viruses.
31:43There was evidence that the Russians had been correct,
31:46that there was a viral reverse transcriptase in the supernatants from these cells.
31:50So they had viruses?
31:51They did have viruses.
31:53But it was our job to confirm everything we had been told.
31:56So the cells were also examined to demonstrate that they were of human origin.
32:01This is when we sent them to Walter Nelson Rees.
32:09These cells were treated with kid gloves.
32:12This was a precious arrival of something extraordinary.
32:14Because something was showing up in these cells that was new, novel, exciting.
32:25And these cells were going to be handled very carefully.
32:30And only until they had been examined thoroughly was anything going to be said about them,
32:36done with them, sent to other people, or anything, God forbid, anything published on these particular cells.
32:40Because this was a breakthrough.
32:44And sooner than not, the results came back.
32:48And all of these cell lines had type AG6PD.
32:53Which meant to us that they were derived from black individuals.
32:58Probably from a 20% of a black population.
33:02Now I knew about Lumumba University.
33:04I knew that there was a large contingent of African blacks in Moscow.
33:11But you know, I just thought there's something fishy here.
33:17It just can't be.
33:19So Nelson Rees examined the chromosomes of the Russian cells.
33:23He found they were all identical to Gila.
33:26It meant only one thing.
33:28Somehow, some of Henrietta Lacks' cells had got through the Iron Curtain.
33:31And the virus the Russians found turned out to be no more than a harmless monkey virus.
33:38She had picked it up on her journey to Moscow.
33:42Then the Russians arrived in Washington for their return visit.
33:46How did you go about telling them the bad news?
33:50It was difficult.
33:52As I recall, we had one of the joint meetings of the two delegations in Bethesda.
33:58The Russian scientists on one side of the table, the Americans on the other side, and all this sort of thing.
34:04We even brought in the scientists, Walter Nelson Rees, who had worked on this one cell line that they thought was a human tumor cell line producing power.
34:12It inadvertently became a national and international event because I was clearly blurting out the fact that this was one in the same cell line, albeit perhaps different cultures, of cells from Henrietta Lacks with the same identical virus growing on them and had nothing to do with some new discovery.
34:32And this is a slap in the face.
34:36The
34:53not according to its name, in fact, it is a skill.
34:57In general, it immediately became clear,
35:00that in America the lines are damaged in the world,
35:04and to us, they were not brought to us these lines,
35:08they were also brought to us from America, from Europe.
35:11Probably, they reacted.
35:14Probably, they reacted.
35:17Probably, they reacted.
35:19Well, maybe, they tried not to show it very well.
35:24Not to show it very well.
35:33At a press conference, the Russians tried to put a brave face on events.
35:37Please, first of all, let me thank the government of the United States
35:43for the invitation of America.
35:46Your delegation considers this script to be very beneficial and very useful.
35:52Sure, may I please intervene?
35:55I don't think it's fair to the minister to ask him to comment on specific individuals...
36:00But the news had leaked out,
36:01although the Americans attempted to hush it up.
36:04convened in order to give...
36:05Although we attempted to play it down considerably,
36:08the Russian episode was visible and newsworthy enough
36:12that it contributed to the increasing skepticism
36:16about the way the virus cancer program would find the human tumor virus.
36:21Another example of a failure for a claim to be upheld,
36:27and as a result then, people begin to believe
36:29there is no claim that will be upheld.
36:32By the mid-seventies, those in charge of the war on cancer
36:36realized they were as far away as ever
36:38from understanding why cells became cancerous.
36:42Billions of dollars had been spent,
36:44but they had found no virus.
36:46And so political pressure and all of this sort of thing started building up
36:53and sooner or later,
36:56they came to realize that
36:58well, the virus cancer program isn't that great.
37:01You have not come across a human tumor virus yet,
37:04and you've been in business since 1964.
37:09The program died.
37:11I'm not saying it died a miserable death,
37:13it just disappeared.
37:15What had begun as a vast project
37:17to push back the boundaries of death had failed.
37:21The secret of what made human cells turn into cancer
37:24and grow and divide ceaselessly remained elusive.
37:29But the scientists and politicians
37:31had raised enormous expectations.
37:34They had turned cancer into a public enemy
37:36and promised to conquer it.
37:39And those expectations remained.
37:41The two million American men and women
37:45who are leading the fight against cancer.
37:49I am not resigned to the shutting away
37:51of loving hearts in the hard ground.
37:53So it is and so it will be.
37:58The best is lost.
38:00The honest look,
38:01the laughter,
38:02the love.
38:03They're gone.
38:04They're gone to feed the roses.
38:08I know, but I do not approve.
38:12And I am not resigned.
38:14But at this very moment of scientific despair,
38:19a new theory of how to conquer cancer emerged.
38:23And yet again,
38:24behind its rise to power
38:25was Henrietta Lacks and her cells.
38:29It came from a new generation of scientists
38:31who believed that cancer
38:32was not caused by a virus from outside.
38:34It came from inside.
38:35It came from inside.
38:36From the genes.
38:39The genetic theory
38:40of the cause of cancer
38:41said that the enemy is within.
38:44It's in your genes.
38:46So from the very moment you're born,
38:48the bomb is ticking away inside of you.
38:50It's much more difficult.
38:52It's more insidious.
38:53We have to intervene within your own body.
38:56We have to be more intrusive.
38:57We can't keep it away.
39:00You have to probe and uncover the bad DNA.
39:04But up to this time,
39:06there had been no way
39:07of identifying particular genes.
39:10Then an English geneticist
39:11called Professor Harris found a way.
39:14Professor Harris fused
39:16HeLa cells with a mouse cell.
39:19The resulting cells,
39:21the clones of cells that are then isolated,
39:23have different elements
39:26of the HeLa cell genetics.
39:30It allowed people to try to map genes
39:33to different chromosomes.
39:35And this was a fundamental tool
39:37in the development of gene mapping.
39:40Henrietta Lacks now became an object
39:41of fascination for geneticists.
39:44They wanted to know everything about her.
39:46Not just her cells,
39:48but her entire genetic history.
39:51The problem was,
39:52she was dead.
39:54You couldn't study her genetics
39:57because she had died.
39:59So the only way to figure out
40:00what she was genetically
40:02in terms of all these different markers
40:04was to go back to her family.
40:11In 1976,
40:12a team of geneticists
40:13set out to track down
40:14the remaining members
40:15of the Lacks family.
40:16They found her husband
40:18and four of her children
40:19still living in Baltimore.
40:21I'd say it was about 15 or 20 years
40:26after she'd been dead
40:27and they wanted to do
40:29this genetic research
40:31to find out whether
40:32any of the kids carried her.
40:33The same gene
40:35that she carried or whatever.
40:36So they wanted blood
40:37so they came
40:38and they asked permission
40:39to draw blood
40:41from her children.
40:43A doctor and a nurse
40:44came to the house
40:45and had all of us there.
40:46The blood tests they did on them,
40:48they took blood tests
40:49from each one of the kids,
40:51each one of my mother's kids
40:53and they told
40:54that they just tested
40:55to see if
40:56what my mother had
40:58was hereditary.
40:59I said,
41:00you're working on her cells?
41:02And he said,
41:03yeah, he said,
41:04her cells are still alive.
41:07And I just,
41:08you know how you,
41:10I was just truly amazed.
41:12And he said
41:13he'd been working on it
41:14for years.
41:15And his life took us
41:16by surprise.
41:17We never knew this.
41:20And there's another thing
41:21that got me upset with him.
41:22I'm like,
41:23is there anything else
41:24I don't know?
41:26And it can get scary
41:29when you think about it.
41:30I mean,
41:31how much of our cells
41:32is out there, you know?
41:35The new technology
41:36of gene mapping
41:37gave geneticists
41:38a feeling of power
41:39and confidence.
41:40They became convinced
41:41that they would find
41:42the cause of cancer.
41:44They would open up the cell
41:45and isolate the cancer genes.
41:47And yet again,
41:54Hollywood became involved.
41:56The stars turned out
41:58to fund the scientists
41:59who offered a new promise.
42:00They would find the cancer genes
42:03and then repair
42:04or replace them.
42:05And cancer would be cured.
42:07What you're here to support tonight
42:10is something that is
42:11somewhat of a new approach
42:12to try and identify
42:14and understand
42:15the basic mechanisms
42:17that change
42:18a normal cell
42:19into a malignant cell.
42:21And then once we understand
42:22these mechanisms
42:23to try and direct our therapy
42:24specifically at those alterations.
42:26Well, their view of the world
42:27is that if I knew
42:29the sequence of a gene,
42:31I would know what it does.
42:33And if I know what it does,
42:35then I'll be able to replace
42:36its faulty operation
42:38by giving it something else.
42:40And so people give them
42:41lots of money,
42:41they give them their faith,
42:42they believe in them,
42:43they hope in them
42:44because they're going to save me
42:46by screwing around
42:47with your genes.
42:48And if cancer could be cured,
42:54one could make
42:54a great deal of money.
42:56The new biotechnology firms
42:58which grew up in the 80s
42:59seized on the promises
43:00being made by the scientists.
43:05The scientists said
43:06to the capitalists,
43:08we now have a technology
43:10that's going to enable us
43:12to cure cancer.
43:14And it was more than hope.
43:15It was a belief.
43:17And it fostered
43:19the biotechnology industry.
43:20I mean, if it was possible
43:22to conquer cancer,
43:23you're probably talking
43:25about the largest market
43:26in the world.
43:27And remember,
43:28all human beings are equal.
43:30There's almost no other products
43:32outside of bullets
43:33that work on all people equally.
43:35And so suddenly there was
43:36an opportunity
43:37to make a lot of money.
43:40They're profiting
43:43off of her
43:45while her family
43:46remains ignorant
43:48of all the things
43:49about her.
43:50Because they've taken
43:51the cells
43:52and used it
43:53without permission.
43:55They have also
43:56distributed without permission.
43:58Does she belong
43:59to the family?
44:00And they also have
44:02research, you know.
44:04And one reason,
44:05because this is
44:06a family matter.
44:09The Lacks family
44:10began to learn more
44:11about what had been done
44:12with their mother's cells.
44:13They decided
44:14to approach lawyers
44:15to see if they could
44:16claim some of the money.
44:17I went to lawyers
44:18because I wanted
44:19to find out
44:20what is happening
44:21with her cells.
44:22From my research,
44:23I found out
44:31that they're selling
44:33her cells
44:34all over the world.
44:35And I just wanted
44:36to find out
44:37who is making money
44:38off my mother's cell.
44:39I was kind of angry
44:41about it
44:42or mad about it
44:43in a way
44:44because it was something
44:45that no one knew.
44:47No one knew about.
44:48The lawyers approached
44:51most of the major
44:52biotechnology
44:53and pharmaceutical companies.
44:54Everywhere,
44:55they were turned away.
44:57It seemed
44:58they had no legal case.
44:59Henrietta Lacks
45:01had died too long ago.
45:02Faced by this,
45:05the Lacks family
45:06decided that
45:07if they couldn't
45:07win any money,
45:08they would fight
45:09for recognition
45:10for their mother.
45:11They began a campaign
45:12which was picked up
45:13by radical black magazines.
45:15We got a lot of pictures
45:17of around here
45:18like this,
45:19around the market,
45:21up at John Hopkins' hospital.
45:23We just want to make them
45:24aware of who she was.
45:25The reason why
45:26I think they're not
45:27trying to acknowledge
45:28is because she's black,
45:31I think if it was
45:32the other way around,
45:33if she was a white female,
45:34I think they would have
45:36been knowledgeable
45:37and they would know
45:38who she is right now.
45:39The Lacks family
45:40became convinced
45:41that their mother's death
45:42somehow represented
45:43a kind of heroism.
45:45It had been a sacrifice
45:46by a black woman
45:48for the rest of the world.
45:50The most famous woman
45:51in the world
45:52in medical history,
45:54the only woman
45:55in the medical history
45:56that holds this title,
45:58you know, to me,
45:59I don't think they want
46:01blacks to hold that title.
46:06But the promise
46:07of finding a cure for cancer
46:08is yet again
46:09beginning to fade.
46:10By the early 90s,
46:12scientists had identified
46:13many genes
46:14associated with cancer.
46:16But these genes
46:17are only one part
46:18in a complicated sequence
46:19of events
46:20that lead to cancer.
46:22The human body
46:23is far more complicated
46:24than scientists thought.
46:26The public optimism
46:28is giving way
46:29to a new scepticism.
46:31We don't have a single case,
46:34not a single case,
46:36where knowledge
46:37of the DNA sequence
46:38of a gene
46:39has led
46:40to a treatment
46:41for the disease.
46:43Knowing all the genes
46:44in the human genome
46:45is in itself
46:46not information
46:47on how the human body works.
46:49If you want to know
46:50how the human body works,
46:51you have to look
46:52at the proteins,
46:53the cell organelles,
46:54the machinery
46:55of the body as a whole.
46:56The DNA information
46:58is not sufficient.
46:59The dream
47:00didn't happen.
47:01The dream
47:02of winning the war
47:03on cancer.
47:04The dream of making
47:05a lot of money
47:06did happen
47:07for a lot of people.
47:08The dream of finding
47:09ways to help
47:10some patients
47:11with cancer
47:12happened.
47:13But the dream
47:14to cure cancer
47:15has not
47:16and did not happen.
47:17Are we any
47:18nearer
47:19curing cancer
47:20than we were
47:2150 years ago?
47:22No.
47:23Certainly not.
47:24In particular cases,
47:26we are
47:28in better control
47:29of the conditions
47:30for chemical
47:32attacks on cancer,
47:33knowing exactly
47:34what chemicals
47:35to give.
47:36Lives are extended
47:37by either burning
47:38the cancer out
47:39or cutting it out
47:40or killing it
47:41with chemicals.
47:42And there are no
47:43other ways.
47:44And there are not
47:45likely to be.
47:46So is the promise
47:47of a genetic
47:48cure of cancer
47:49an illusion?
47:50Yes.
47:51It really is?
47:52Yes.
47:53I don't know what
47:56more to say.
47:58Running, running,
47:59running,
48:00I can't tell you
48:03Morehouse College
48:04in Atlanta
48:05is one of the oldest
48:06black universities
48:07in America.
48:08If my mother
48:09don't go
48:11I can't tell you
48:13Last October,
48:14on the 45th anniversary
48:15of Henrietta Lacks' death,
48:16it honoured her
48:17and her family.
48:19It was the culmination
48:20of their campaign
48:21for the recognition
48:22of their mother.
48:24I'm running up
48:25the King's Highway
48:28The city of Atlanta
48:30acknowledges
48:31the contributions
48:32of Henrietta Lacks
48:34for advancing
48:35the medical
48:36and scientific
48:37efforts
48:38for cancer,
48:39polio
48:40and many other diseases
48:42and on behalf
48:43of the citizens
48:44of Atlanta
48:46hereby
48:47proclaim
48:48October 11th
48:50as Henrietta Lacks' day
48:52in our city.
48:54Signed,
48:55William Camber.
48:57The family
48:58now became celebrity.
48:59Would you give us
49:00some response
49:01on your emotional
49:02comments
49:03at this time?
49:04Well,
49:05I was,
49:06I think I was part
49:07of a miracle
49:08because
49:09she was pregnant
49:10with me,
49:11she was dying
49:12with cancer.
49:13So,
49:14the only little
49:15outcome I had
49:16of that,
49:17I stayed in the hospital
49:18a whole year
49:19with,
49:20since then,
49:21I really have
49:22a clean bill of health
49:23and she's done,
49:24you know,
49:25tremendous,
49:26miraculous help
49:27for other people,
49:28you know,
49:29that she deserved.
49:30As a result
49:31of the campaign,
49:32Henrietta Lacks
49:33has become
49:34a scientific heroine.
49:35but in reality,
49:36she has defeated
49:37science.
49:38For 45 years,
49:39scientists have
49:40struggled
49:41to understand
49:42her cells
49:43and cure cancer.
49:44But a growing
49:46number of scientists
49:47believe that even
49:48if they understood
49:49why Henrietta's cells
49:50grow and divide
49:51ceaselessly,
49:52they could not
49:53cure the disease.
49:54There is a new
49:56pessimism in science.
49:58I can know the cause
50:01of lots of things.
50:02I know the cause
50:03of the tides,
50:04but I can't stop them.
50:06I know the cause
50:07of hurricanes,
50:08but I can't stop them.
50:09I know the current
50:10causes of death.
50:11And even if I can
50:13prevent some
50:14of the current
50:15causes of death,
50:16I cannot stop death.
50:17It's here to stay.
50:19All flesh is as the grass.
50:22Gila will live forever,
50:32perhaps.
50:33The dance of Gila continues.
50:36They are all dancing
50:37out there somewhere
50:38along the line,
50:39and they're still
50:40on the stage somewhere,
50:41I'm sure.
50:42The stage is very broad
50:43and wide,
50:44and the curtain
50:45has by no means
50:46gone down on them
50:47and the music plays on.
50:52Do you think...
51:15No.
51:16This stupid ass...
51:17Do you think
51:19himself is still living?
51:20I tell him,
51:22in the grave.
51:28Hell no,
51:29I don't guess they are.
51:30But they're living
51:31elsewhere.
51:32They're still living
51:33out in the test tubes.
51:35That's a miracle.
51:50wonderful.
51:51Hymaniyakui,
51:52friends.
51:53After getting出
51:54a core,
51:55you let them go down
51:56a whole soul.
51:57I'm afraid they'll learn
51:58whether I go Which one excellent
51:59one.
52:00but we're done.
52:01don't draw.
52:02Once they've killed them.
52:03Keep it down,
52:04they're Justin Susan.
52:05Just as she has seen
52:07the pain of you,
52:08they love.
52:09It's my life.
52:10It's videos.
52:11It's creepy sitting there.
52:13just walking down a door.
52:14Here's
52:15time.
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