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Fled
Africa Horror only to Die from Medicine |
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A US District Court judge
has awarded $4.5 million to the family of a woman who died after doctors at
a federally funded clinic failed to notice she was having a bad reaction to
an AIDS drug.
Jacqueline Makombe, 39, contracted
HIV after being gang-raped by Congo's
military. With her husband and three young children, she traveled across
Africa as a refugee before coming to the United States and settling in
Chicago.
David Pritchard, who represented the family at trial, argued that lactic
acidosis "was a known side effect of the drug," Zerit, that Makombe had been
prescribed. "She kept coming in with all these symptoms. All they would have
had to do was to switch her to another medication, and she would have
lived." Pritchard filed the suit under the federal tort claims act, which
provides for a verdict by a judge, rather than by a jury.
Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer rejected the government's argument that the side
effect was not widely known. "Mrs. Makombe was receiving state-of-the-art
HIV treatment; and her treatment was working," the judge wrote. "That she
died from the very medication that was helping her, at a time when her life
was full of promise, is wrenching."
A spokesperson said the US attorney's office was reviewing response options,
including appeal. The judge awarded $1 million to each of Makombe's
children, $1 million to her estate and $500,000 to her husband, Innocent
Kasongo.
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Chicago Sun Times
(07.18.07):: Abdon M. Pallasch |
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