NIAAH Editors

A decades-old betrayal. A present-day crisis. Both demand our attention. Let's start with the truth: Black people in America have been lied to, experimented on, and discarded by the medical establishment for as long as there has been a medical establishment. That is history. And history has a way of making the present complicated. Right now, two NYTimes stories are sitting side by side in the news, and together they capture exactly why so many of us feel pulled in two directions at once. ...

Ivan Martinez , West Virginia University In an amazing twist of fate, the aggressive cervical cancer tumor that killed Henrietta Lacks , a 31-year old African American mother, became an essential tool that helped the biomedical field flourish in the 20th century. As a cancer researcher who uses HeLa cells in my everyday work, even I sometimes find it hard to believe. Lacks’ cervical cancer cells, called “HeLa” after the first two letters of her first and last name, are immortal , continuing...

Lynn Gardner , Morehouse School of Medicine Few things are more challenging than trying to vaccinate a terrified and uncooperative child. I have seen children wedge themselves into a corner and refuse to budge. I have seen them thrash and yell. And I have seen them sit perfectly still, but cry the entire time. I’m an associate professor of pediatrics and have been a primary care pediatrician for more than 25 years. I’ve encountered these situations thousands of times in my career. While...