clipped from: www.mail.com   
By RODRIQUE NGOWI

A jury awarded $2.5 million in damages Wednesday to a woman who received HIV treatments for almost nine years before discovering she never actually had the virus that causes AIDS.

In her lawsuit against a doctor who treated her, Audrey Serrano said the powerful combination of drugs she took triggered a string of ailments, including depression, chronic fatigue, loss of weight and appetite and inflammation of the intestine.

Serrano, 45, said she cried after hearing the verdict in Worcester Superior Court and was gratified that the jury believed her.

Serrano's attorney
said Dr. Kwan Lai,
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,"