Also the family of the patient has the right to make the decision if the patient is unable to do so. There are many consequences if doctors or medical personal ignore these laws. These people can be sued by their patients if they were to be found out like one man had tried to do, his name was John Moore. Another consequence could be the loss of suspension of their medical license. Due to this involuntary involvement in medical research, HeLa cells came to be used throughout medical research.
HeLa cells grow at a fast rate so they are perfect to be used in the development of vaccines and other medical research. HeLa cells were used to discover the vaccine to a disease that had been very well known thanks to FDR, one of the presidents of the United States. It was Polio. NFIP created the vaccine but to be tested they used monkeys but they were too expensive to use on this scale and died in the process. Animal rights wasn't an issue in this time so the major hurdle was the money the monkey would cost. So the NFIP used the immortal HeLa cells to conquer this problem. Another medical instance where HeLa cells were used when a virologist named Chester Southam, used the HeLa cells to see if the scientist that handled the cells could get cancer form them. To prove that cancer was caused by a virus or an immune system deficiency he grafted the cells onto a burned arm. The cells that grew over the burned arm were all cancerous but it was proven that the cells needed to be inside your body for the host to get the cancer. You couldn't get the cancer by just handling the cells. As all this good work the HeLa cells were doing, Henrietta's family didn't even know that her cells were taken from her in the first place. .
The Lacks family has had a distrust of doctors even before Henrietta had gotten sick, but now that they know that they were kept in the dark about the HeLa cells they have a deep distrust to anyone knowing anything to do with Henrietta's cells.
