Veteran Bobby Russell's nine-year hell after false HIV test

A VETERAN who has lived the last nine years believing he was HIV positive is suing the hospitals and doctors that allegedly misdiagnosed him.

Bobby Russell, 43, from Lexington, Kentucky, said living with the belief he had contracted the virus was “just the most difficult thing I've had to deal with my entire life”.

“Emotionally, mentally, it destroyed me. It just destroyed me,” Mr Russell told the Lexington Herald Leader. “In 2009, when things got really bad for me, suicide was a strong option for me.”

Following his alleged false diagnosis Mr Russell said he took powerful medication and only had sexual relationships with people who were HIV positive to avoid spreading the disease.

He has spent the last two years in a committed relationship with a HIV positive partner. As a result he fears he may now have contracted the disease for real.

"I feel like I was lied to," he told local TV station LEX18.

According to a suit on behalf of Mr Russell, his life was tued on its head in September 2004 after a test came back positive for the sexually transmitted disease from the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Mr Russell questioned the diagnosis and although a confirmatory test came back negative doctors treating him allegedly ignored the results of this later test and he was given a cocktail of drugs to treat the virus.

Eventually the diagnosis was called into question when he was denied disability benefits by a provider who found no trace of HIV, he said.

He is now suing the University of Kentucky Medical Center, the Bluegrass Care Clinic, the Fayette County Health Department and a long list of doctors who he alleges misdiagnosed him.