During the early 1960s, researchers began to fear that HeLa had contaminated other cells studied in their labs. They decided to reform their methods for handling cells and create a collection of known cell lines to use as reference when determining whether a cell culture has been contaminated.
While the science world was dealing with HeLa-related problems, Henrietta’s children were struggling to find their place in the world. Lawrence and Sonny were doing fine, but Deborah got pregnant when she was 16. Bobbette helped her finish high school and even helped her leave Cheetah, her abusive husband, when the time came. Joe, the youngest of the siblings was filled with anger and ran into the most trouble. After being discharged from the army for “failure to adjust,” he killed a man in Baltimore for which he was sentenced to 15 years in jail. While he was doing his time, Joe converted to Islam and changed his name to Zakariyya.