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Dec. 16th, 2004 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingA pregnant Tennessee woman who enrolled in federally funded research in hopes of saving her soon-to-be-born son from getting AIDS died last year when doctors continued to give her an experimental drug regimen despite signs of liver failure
Family members of Joyce Ann Hafford say the 33-year-old HIV-positive woman died without ever holding her newborn boy. They also said they never were told the National Institutes of Health concluded the drug therapy likely caused her death.
The family first learned of NIH's conclusions when The Associated Press obtained copies of the case file this month. For the past year, they say they were left to believe Hafford, of Memphis, Tenn., died from AIDS complications but began pursuing litigation to learn more.
"They tried to make it sound like she was just sick. They never connected it to the drug," said Rubbie King, Hafford's sister.
"If it were the disease, solely the disease, and the complications associated with the disease, that would be more readily acceptable than her being administered medication that came with warnings that the medical community failed to get ... to her."
Family members of Joyce Ann Hafford say the 33-year-old HIV-positive woman died without ever holding her newborn boy. They also said they never were told the National Institutes of Health concluded the drug therapy likely caused her death.
The family first learned of NIH's conclusions when The Associated Press obtained copies of the case file this month. For the past year, they say they were left to believe Hafford, of Memphis, Tenn., died from AIDS complications but began pursuing litigation to learn more.
"They tried to make it sound like she was just sick. They never connected it to the drug," said Rubbie King, Hafford's sister.
"If it were the disease, solely the disease, and the complications associated with the disease, that would be more readily acceptable than her being administered medication that came with warnings that the medical community failed to get ... to her."