A 45-year-old woman received a $2.5 million dollar verdict against her doctor because for nearly nine years she underwent HIV treatments and did not have the disease. Audrey Serrano said she was thankful for the verdict.

“I’m going to finish my school and I am going to continue to help others,” Serrano said in a telephone interview from her Fitchburg home. “I am going to find another doctor that will help me.”

She also said the combination of drugs she took led to a string of side effects such as depression, chronic fatigue, loss of weight and appetite, and inflammation of the intestine.

According to her attorney, Serrano was treated in Worcester by Dr. Kwan Lai at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center?s HIV clinic. According to her lawyer, the clinic failed to order definitive tests after Serrano?s treatment did not show the presence of HIV in her blood.

“Audrey’s case clearly demonstrates how inadequate that procedure was,” the lawyer said. He said his client “is responsible for changing thousands of lives in the future.”

Source: [?Woman Misdiagnosed With HIV Gets Millions,?] (http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2007/12/13/woman_misdiagnosed_with_hiv_gets_25m/) TheBostonChannel.com, December 13, 2007.