I've been dead for over seventy years. Black. Poor. Sick. Mother of four. The first was born when I was 14. I had the girl, who is different, but I can still communicate with her through gestures and smiles. The last one was born recently, in November, and I've been hospitalized since the beginning of this year. I came here after feeling a lump in my abdomen. At first I thought it was because of Joseph, but after his birth, I continued bleeding. David, my husband, took me to see what it was. They immediately told me syphilis. – Syphilis, oh Lord! What have you done, David? Dad was distraught, and was only comforted when they transferred me to this hospital, because it's the only one that treats my people. "My people," that's how we are treated and separated. Dr. Jones interrupts my reverie and says I have cancer.
I am Henrietta Lacks, and I have been dead for over seventy years. Before my death, I read a poem by Langston Hughes, which goes something like this: That Justice is a blind goddess / is something we Black people knew. / Her bandage hides two inflamed wounds / that perhaps were once eyes. I carry no bandages or wounds, but for a couple of years no one knew for sure where my body had been buried; however, my cells have saved countless lives over these decades and continue to save lives at this very moment. Well, the cells of the American Henrietta Lacks, known as HeLa cells, named so because samples were identified from the first letters of her first and last name, are known as immortal cells due to their unique characteristic of dividing rapidly and remaining active. They were removed from her body without her consent and enabled unimaginable advances in medicine, such as the development of the polio vaccine, as well as being used in cancer research.
In this regard, according to the World Health Organization, in 2020, 2,3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide, resulting in 685.000 deaths from this neoplasm. In Brazil, out of a total of 704.080 neoplasms estimated in 2023, 51,5% affected the female population. Under the auspices of the United Nations, the document on the Rights of Women was drafted in 1979, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, stipulating that, in addition to the right to life, women have the right to health. It should be noted that, in 1984, the Brazilian Ministry of Health proposed the Comprehensive Women's Health Care Program, representing a conceptual break with the guiding principles of women's health policy, including the issue of cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately R$ 2,5 billion will be spent in 2030 and R$ 3,4 billion in 2040 on three types of cancer: breast, colon and rectum, and endometrium.
Expenses or the right to life? According to the 2022 census, the Brazilian population was 203.062.512 inhabitants, with women making up the majority at 51,5%, and being the main users of the Unified Health System (SUS). Yes, because it is women who resort to the SUS not only for their own health care, but also for that of their families. How many women were abandoned in the postpartum period after giving birth to a child with microcephaly and other anomalies? How many were left in bed because they were ill, or on the floor, deprived of their freedom? How many were silenced or had their faces covered? How many are weeding the fields, with the wind as their confidant, spreading dandelion seeds to teach us that the story of a being considered despicable is what makes us divine? How many sought meaning in existence, yet did not experience their own luminosity in life?
Augusto dos Anjos died young, and his only book of poems, "Eu" (I), was published, ignored at the time of its release and now revered as one of our great poets. Fernando Pessoa did not see his multifaceted poetic grandeur cross the salty sea of Portugal. Van Gogh! The beloved who needs no introduction. Bach, Kafka, Emily Dickinson, Modigliani, Ada Lovelace. Henrietta? Woman, mother, Black, poor, sick, discriminated against, wronged, buried as an indigent, identified by an initials on a test tube. She was not a poet, not a writer, not a composer, not a painter, not a mathematician. She was neither this nor that. She was everything, since in the invisibility of her existence shines the hope of being what we dream of. When encountering Henrietta, one finds not only the story of a woman whose body was destined for reproduction and motherhood, but also allows us a profound reflection on the reason for existence. If, by chance, the universalization of the category "Woman" privileges the white and wealthy, the symbolism of Henrietta echoes Minister Rosa Weber, who presided over the Supreme Federal Court between 2023 and 2024. From her words, one can extract guiding principles for human development, because according to her, gender equality is an expression of citizenship and human dignity and a fundamental prerequisite for democracy.
And what about us? How can we address Women's Health across various fields of knowledge, including my own, which is chemical engineering? Okay. In one of my classes, I posed the following question: Among the solutes used to evaluate protein diffusion in cells is green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP has the ability to efficiently irradiate fluorophores, useful for deciphering and controlling the association between the structure and spectroscopic function of proteins. Given the need to understand basic aspects of the mass diffusion mechanism in animal cells, and considering the information on the diffusion coefficient values of GFP in the cytoplasm of HeLa cells, obtain the apparent dynamic viscosity value of the cytoplasm of this cell at 22°C, knowing that the Stokes-Einstein molecular radius of GFP is 2,82 nm. By the way, I am black, poor, sick, and have been dead for over seventy years. And the result is 3,07 centipoise.
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