The State - News from Jan. 14, 1988

A nurse who apparently got nongenital herpes from a patient cannot be denied disability benefits because of her refusal to take a drug that she reasonably feared would harm her future children, a state appeal court in San Francisco has ruled. The court criticized the state Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board for offering Catherine Daly the “grisly choice” of following her doctor’s advice, and sacrificing benefits, or “exposing herself and her unborn child to unknown risks” from a drug called acyclovir, which had not been approved for general use by the Food and Drug Administration. The Compensation Appeals Board had found that Daly, a former registered nurse at Vallejo General Hospital, had unreasonably refused effective medical treatment.