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December 13, 2007
A Woman’s True Story of a False Positive
A woman who has been on a strict HIV regimen for nine years was not actually living with the virus, and was awarded $2.5 million by a Worcester Massachusetts jury December 12 after two days of deliberation, the Associated Press reports (ap.google.com, 12/13).
After discovering that she was HIV negative, Audrey Serrano filed a lawsuit against Dr. Kwan Lai of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, whom she says failed to administer definitive follow-up testing while she was on treatment. According to the AP, Lai claimed last week that Serrano told her that she was a sex worker with an HIV-positive partner. In addition, Lai testified that Serrano told her that she was suffering from Pneumocystis pneumonia, which she says is a common affliction for positive people. Lai added that she saw no need to question the original diagnosis, which was a false positive.
“It is one of the clearest cases of misdiagnosis that I have ever seen and it’s based on a presumption that people who engage in certain types of conduct are more likely to have HIV and AIDS than other people without really listening to the patient,” said David Angueria, Serrano’s attorney.
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