A U.S. Navy veteran who tested positive for HIV in 1995 was never told by the Department of Veterans Affairs—and went on to have multiple girlfriends and suffer devastating health issues, according to a lawsuit. The unidentified veteran only found out he tested positive when he saw a VA doctor in 2015, who came across the 1995 lab results and asked the vet who his infectious disease doctor was. When the vet said he didn’t have one, the doctor asked if he knew he was HIV positive. Given he’d had no treatment for two decades, the man now has “full-blown AIDS” with associated conditions like infection of his brain tissue, the federal suit said. He also felt “extremely guilty” about potentially infecting others unwittingly, the man’s lawyer said.
