Stephanie Goldberg Widow of health care worker who died of hepatitis C due workers comp benefits

The widow of a heath care worker who died from complications related to his hepatitis C is entitled to benefits despite the fact that the man received a blood transfusion in 1970 that his employer argued could have given him the disease, the Missouri Court of Appeals has ruled.

Stephen Smith worked for Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City, Missouri, as a medical laboratory technician from 1969 until March 2006, court records show.

Mr. Smith and other health care workers didn't wear protective equipment while handling blood and human tissue before safety measures were implemented in the 1980s or 1990s, according to court records. They also used a narrow glass straw, known as a pipette, to prepare blood slides by placing one end in a tube of blood and sucking on the other end to draw blood into it, records show.

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