"Pharmacist Wins Case in Hospital AIDS Bias"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"Pharmacist Wins Case in Hospital AIDS Bias"

New York Times (12/14/90), P. B4
Feron, James

Abstract: The New York Division of Human Rights yesterday rejected a hospital's claim that it refused to hire an HIV-infected pharmacist because of the "theoretical risk of infection." Human Rights Commissioner Margarita Rosa ruled that the Westchester County Medical Center discriminated against the pharmacist, known as John Doe, and that his "unrestricted employment posed a negligible risk of infection to patients." The hospital decided to hire John Doe when he applied for work at the hospital in 1985. However, the hopsital rescinded its decision after a nurse recognized him as having testing positive for HIV a month earlier. Evan Wolfson, lawyer for the pharmacist, said the ruling was the first one to uphold a 1987 law set down by the Supreme Court that gave a person with a contagious disease protection as handicapped under the law. The court ruling, Wolfson said, means an institution cannot bar a health-care worker from the workplace in the absence of "significant risk.

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