The Nation - News from April 12, 1985

The wife of a retired Navy man, who was told by a doctor at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., that she was just “paranoid” about a recurring lump in her breast, has won a $1-million decision against the federal government for a misdiagnosis of what has become a life-threatening cancer. In what he called a “tragic case” of negligence, U.S. District Judge James R. Miller ruled in Baltimore that doctors who conducted a biopsy on Judith Burke, 36, of Manassas, Va., erred in evaluating tests done in April, 1981. Doctors then diagnosed the lump in Burke’s left breast as benign. A year and a half later, after the lump had doubled in size, doctors ordered another biopsy and found cancer in the breast and nearby lymph nodes. Doctors reviewed the original report and found that the cancer had been evident then.