Lawsuit Over Henrietta Lacks's Legacy

Someone is profiting, but it isn't her family.

(Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for The White Dress Project)

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

Earlier this month, the family of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the companies alleged to be profiting from the unauthorized use of living tissue taken from Lacks — without her consent or knowledge. it was filed on the anniversary of Lacks’s death in what year?

Hint: “Thermo Fisher Scientific’s choice to continue selling HeLa cells in spite of the cell lines’ origin and the concrete harms it inflicts on the Lacks family can only be understood as a choice to embrace a legacy of racial injustice embedded in the U.S. research and medical systems,” the suit says. “Black people have the right to control their bodies. And yet Thermo Fisher Scientific treats Henrietta Lacks’ living cells as chattel to be bought and sold.”

See the answer on the next page.

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