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#1
10-19-2006, 03:51 AM
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Being incorrectly told you have an STD
A friend of mine got an interesting letter/form in the mail recently. It was a sheet from a medical diagnostics company. It had his name, address, age, gender, etc, then a doctor's name, then a list of various health numbers.
The form was used for a blood test (showing things like cholesterol level, etc), then there was a list of STDs. For each STD, it stated that my friend was 'clean', except for one very serious STD (not that others are laughing matters...but...). Lets say the STD in question is ABC. So, at first glance, it would appear that my friend likely has ABC. Now come the "excepts"s. Except he's never heard of or been to this doctor. Except he's never heard of or been to this medical diagnostic company. Except that he hasn't had sex in a LONG time. Except that the date on the form is for a time period when he was out of the country. When he came back into the country, he tried to donate blood. The blood bank said he couldn't, because he had recently been out of the country. They also took a drop of blood to test, so it's POSSIBLE that this medical form is related to this blood drop. However, the date on the form (once hand written, once typed) is from over 6 weeks before the form was sent. The form was also sent in a plain white letter envelope, with the name of the diagnostic company hand written where the return address would go (just the name, no address) and the word "confidential" written over the flap of the envelope (so somebody could tell if the envelope had been tampered with). It was not sent certified, nor was there any phone call accompaning it. Thus, if this one letter envelope were to be "lost in the mail", my friend would have not received any notice of it. He seriously doubt he has ABC, but IF he did, one would think that the diagnostics procedure would be more rigorous. Sooooo....It's HUGELY unlikely that he has ABC. However, this letter is still very stressful, causing him to lose sleep, and now he needs to go get a blood test done just to make sure he doesn't have ABC. Does he have any grounds for suing either the doctor or the diagnostic company? Should he go down this road? No, I'm not "the friend", and I am also suggesting to him that he does not look to sue. But I'm hoping to hear other points of view. Thanks, Josh 
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#4
10-19-2006, 03:59 AM
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Re: Being incorrectly told you have an STD
[ QUOTE ]
maybe someone's playing a prank on him? [/ QUOTE ] 
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#5
10-19-2006, 04:02 AM
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Re: Being incorrectly told you have an STD
[ QUOTE ]
why can't you just say 'HIV'? [/ QUOTE ] The terms "STD" and "HIV" don't go together on 2+2 these days.
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#8
10-19-2006, 10:21 AM
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Re: Being incorrectly told you have an STD
When I was stationed in Hawaii I started partying a LOT! I also started sleeping with a lot of women.
A few months later I got a real bad rash and itch down there. I sure was embarassed about it. I had to go to the dr and get on the list to see a dr. You were supposed to write down why you were there. I wrote "personal". So I get called back and lucky me I get a female dr. I tell her I have an STD. So she asks me to drop my undies. But first she has to get a male nurse to be a witness. Now I'm double nervous. I'm not anything more than avg and it sure was cold in there that morning. (insert George Castanza joke here). So anyway I'm sitting there butt naked and then she asks me "Do you jog?" I say yes.....She then says "you have jock itch" So if anyone of you all thought I was smart you now know I am not [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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#9
10-19-2006, 10:29 AM
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Re: Being incorrectly told you have an STD
Sketchy as hell.
I can tell you this is not the way the Red Cross notifies you if you test positive for anything when donating blood with them. They do send a letter, but it's much more professional and contains a lot more information. Guess I'm going to have to explain: for some reason that I don't understand, I test as a false positive on whatever preliminary HIV test they give. A few weeks after donating blood with them, I got a letter reassuring me I didn't have anything, but that I was always going to be a false positive on their firsts tests and trigger a more expensive follow-up test and that I was therefore not doing them any favors by donating blood, even though they could actually use it for transfusions. But I imagine if I was actually positive, if anything, they would have been more, not less, professional about letting me know. Your friend should get a test somewhere else, and assuming this letter is wrong, report it.
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