This is a book and site I really want to encourage you to visit and read the excerpt--The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Following is a short description from Ms. Skloot's site:
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to the small, dying town of Clover, Virginia — a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo — to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta’s children, unable to afford health insurance, wrestle with feelings of pride, fear, and betrayal. Their story is inextricably linked to the birth of bioethics, the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, and the legal battles that could determine whether we own our bodies.