AIDS-Infected Marine Sues U.S. Over Deaths in Family

A Marine warrant officer infected with the AIDS virus has sued the federal government for $55 million, alleging that Navy doctors gave his wife an AIDS-tainted blood transfusion that eventually killed her and their son.

Martin Gaffney, 39, filed the negligence lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court, claiming the Navy mishandled his wife’s pregnancy by causing their baby to be stillborn, then giving her a transfusion that transmitted the deadly virus to him, his wife and a son born later.

“I’ve asked for an apology,” said Gaffney, a chief warrant officer. “Even the Soviet Union has apologized for killing an American soldier. But my own government won’t apologize for being responsible for the deaths of my wife and son even though I serve them.”

Gaffney said he filed the lawsuit because he wants to provide for his 4-year-old daughter, Maureene. She is the only member of the family to escape infection and will likely become an orphan, Gaffney said.

Calls Offer ‘Insulting’

He said he also decided to sue after the Navy responded with an “insulting” settlement offer of less than $1 million to a complaint he had filed internally.

“It’s been a very long, frustrating time waiting for the Navy to act,” Gaffney said. “I realized I wasted six months of my life waiting for the Navy to act.”

Gaffney’s wife, Mutsuko, 38, a Japanese national, died in May, 1987. The couple’s 13-month-old son, John, died in 1986. Gaffney lives with his daughter on a Navy base in South Weymouth, about 15 miles south of Boston.

Though Gaffney’s health is still good, he said he has made provisions for his daughter to live with his brother when he dies.

Transfusion in 1981

The Gaffneys were married in 1981, three years after meeting in Okinawa, and their first child was due that August.

The lawsuit claims Mutsuko Gaffney went into the Navy Regional Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif., one Saturday certain she was about to give birth, but a nurse sent her home.

Two days later, doctors discovered the baby had died. During a subsequent Caesarean section, Mutsuko Gaffney was given two units of blood, one of which was contaminated with the AIDS virus, the lawsuit says.