Posted: January 28th, 2024

The medical community during the 1950s?

How did the Lacks family, the media, and the general population view the medical community during the 1950s? What is the Nuremberg Code? How was it used, and was it easily enforced? Why or why not?
How have ethics and laws around medical research with human subjects changed? How is the medical community viewed today, and what do you think would have happened in Henrietta Lacks’s case if she lived today? Support your response by citing 2 to 3 reputable sources.
Part 2

navigate to the Breach Portal on the Office for Civil Rights website and review the list of breaches of unsecured protected health information. https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report…

, discuss the following:

The states where the breaches occurred
The covered entity types
The number of individuals affected in each breach
The month and year when the breaches were reported
The type of breach
The location of breached information
Look for trends and extract any information that can be useful for compliance within the organization.

During the 1950s, the Lacks family and African American community viewed the medical establishment with distrust, given the history of exploitation and unethical treatment of Black people in medical research. While HeLa cells helped advance medicine, the Lacks family’s consent was not obtained and they did not benefit financially. Today, their story highlights the importance of informed consent and benefit sharing.
The Nuremberg Code, established in 1947 after the Nazi doctor trials, set basic ethics standards for medical research involving human subjects. It required voluntary and informed consent, that risks not exceed benefits, and that researchers could end a study if harm seemed likely. However, it was not a binding law and lacked an enforcement mechanism. Over time, its principles became adopted in policies by research institutions and government regulations.
Laws and views have greatly changed since the 1950s. In 1974, the National Research Act established Institutional Review Boards to evaluate risks/benefits of research. In 1979, the Belmont Report further outlined ethical principles of respect, beneficence, and justice. Today, medical research requires extensive informed consent processes and IRB oversight. If Lacks were alive now, her consent would have been obtained and her family may have benefited from HeLa cell contributions to medicine.
Some sources on this topic include the Nuremberg Code (1947), the Belmont Report (1979), and the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” (2010) by Rebecca Skloot which details Lacks’ story and its impact on medical ethics.
Regarding the OCR Breach Portal data, some trends I noticed include: many breaches occurred in California and New York, affected general hospitals and health plans, impacted thousands to millions of individuals, and involved unsecured paper records, email/internet, and lost or stolen devices/media. This data underscores the importance of organizations implementing strong security practices for protecting patient information.