A $2.5 Million Misdiagnosis

A woman misdiagnosed with AIDS and made ill by the medicines prescribed to her for 9 years wins $2.5 million in court. Some details from AP:

[Audrey] Serrano's attorney, David Angueira, said Dr. Kwan Lai, who treated his client at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester's HIV clinic, repeatedly failed to order definitive tests even after monitoring of Serrano's treatment did not show the presence of HIV in her blood.

"It is one of the clearest cases of misdiagnosis that I have ever seen and it's based in part 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," Angueira said after the verdict.

Lai testified last week that Serrano told her she had worked as a prostitute, her partner had AIDS, and that she had suffered three bouts of a type of pneumonia typically associated with those infected by the virus.

Serrano has denied she had ever been a prostitute. She confirmed that her former boyfriend tested positive for HIV/AIDS, but disputed the claim that she told the doctor that she had suffered bouts of Pneumocystis pneumonia.

Michael Moynihan blogged last month on millions of other people (mostly theoretical, still…) who were said to have AIDS but don't really.