Southern to tackle racism in health care, medical support for Black moms at 2-day event

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A free two-day symposium in Baton Rouge will focus on health-related topics, including Black maternal health care. Southern University’s law center, university and museum of art and culture are hosting the Henrietta Lacks Symposium on March 22-23. This year’s theme, according to organizers, is “Humanizing HER” and focuses on fertility, health equity, maternal health and medical racism. On Friday, March 22, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ben Crump will talk about academic work and advocacy. On Saturday, there will be more conversations with panelists of advocates, authors, legal scholars and health care professionals. They’ll talk about the event themes and give an update on the Lacks court case. Event organizers said the conference “aims to elevate Henrietta Lacks’ family’s 70-year quest for justice and illuminate the crucial intersections of health equity, fertility, medical racism, and Black maternal well-being.” Southern University System President to hold leadership roundtable, golf classic fundraiser According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman whose cancer cells are used for medical research, specifically “used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans.” The webpage about Lacks states that Johns...