Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Saturday, June 6, 1998
The jury returned its award after nearly three weeks of trial in St. Louis Circuit Court. The plaintiff is a woman from Farmington, Mo., identified only as Marie, whose 25-year-old son died of complications from AIDS in 1995.
Lawyers for Bayer AG were unavailable for comment but have indicated they may seek an appeal.
Jan Adams, Marie's lawyer, believes Friday's judgment shows justice has prevailed for hemophiliacs.
Hemophilia is a potentially fatal condition that prevents a person's blood from clotting.
Adams told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "It's been a long, difficult and expensive battle against big drug companies and their high-priced defense lawyers."
Adams says Marie's son was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the early 1980s after using products designed to help hemophiliacs.
Bayer acknowledges the man was infected by its products but claimed the infection was inevitable, since the company could not have prevented the transmission of the virus.
More than a dozen similar cases are pending in St. Louis.
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