The name Henrietta Lacks was never mentioned around Veronica Robinson’s household when she was growing up in Baltimore.Robinson, the great-granddaughter of Lacks, said the name of the now-famous cell donor brought up too many painful memories for her family.”My grandfather had to watch his mom die an excruciating death,” Robinson said.
Lacks underwent treatment for cervical cancer in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital and died the same year from the disease. But unbeknown to Lacks or her family at the time, samples of her cervix were taken for medical research.
