Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle; Tuesday, July 2, 1991
Reynolds Holding, Chronicle Staff
A San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded the money to Mitchell Welenken for the emotional distress he suffered after a mix-up in blood samples caused Dr. Richard Cazen to diagnose Welenken's ills as AIDS-related complex. After another blood test six months later, Cazen told Welenken that the diagnosis was wrong.
The case is believed to be the first so-called AIDS fright case to reach trial in San Francisco.
According to the parties' legal briefs, Welenken told Dr. Lary Abramson that he was suffering from stomach ailments and chills in September 1986. Abramson had a T-cell test done at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center in San Francisco, which sent the blood sample to SmithKline Bio-Sciences Laboratories. Somehow, the sample was switched with blood from an AIDS patient, and the test came back positive.
Abramson, however, told Welenken that he was healthy. After Cazen took over Abramson's practice, he looked at the test results and determined that Welenken had AIDS in January 1987. Welenken underwent treatment with the drug AZT. But Cazen reversed his diagnosis in June 1987 when further blood tests came back normal.
The jury found SmithKline and Davies liable for half of Welenken's damages, and Cazen liable for the remaining half. Abramson was not found liable.
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