BELLEVILLE, Ill. (CN) - A woman says mistakes by a physician and laboratory led her to believe she was HIV positive for 10 months. She claims that a blood test she took at Quest Diagnostics on April 22, 2008 falsely showed she had the fatal disease, and she believed it until she was retested.
Ashley McCoy says she was retested on Feb. 2, 2009 and learned that the earlier test was false.
Her complaint in St. Clair County Court states that between April 22, 2008 and Feb. 2, 2009, Dr. Michael E. Herrmann, and Quest Diagnostics published untrue statements calling her HIV-positive to SLUCare Physicians of St. Louis University and other third parties. She says living with the stress of the false diagnosis made her so depressed she had to seek medical help.
She seeks punitive damages for defamation and emotional distress. She is represented by Paul Storment.
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