Tuberculosis Case (TB)

Good Morning America has the exclusive story aired tomorrow morning, including a Diane Sawyer interview with the creep.



From ABCNews.com:

Andrew Speaker has asked for forgiveness from the airline passengers he exposed to a rare strain of tuberculosis... (since when do personal injury lawyers ask for forgiveness?)

Speaker, a 31-year-old lawyer from Atlanta, learned he had TB in January. In May, doctors realized his strain, known as XDR-TB, was extensively drug-resistant. He then boarded a commercial flight to Paris May 12, and returned from Europe 12 days later on a flight from Prague, Czech Republic, to Canada.


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His father in law is saying that if he had any say in the matter, he would not have let the guy fly, knowingly having this type of TB. From what I understand about TB, all it would take is a sneeze caused by an alergen, to make TB airborne and passed around the plane's cabin. I am hearing that no cure and very limited treatments exists for this disease and that death will result. This guy wasn't even wearing a mask on the plane rides to help prevent contamination.

Ever read that Clancy book about terrorists (actually paid by doctors) spreading Eboli at the 2000 Australia Olympics? This kind of reminds me of that. Terrorists don't have to do too much, other than infecting some random stranger here and there, and all hell will break loose. Scary?, you better believe it. Realistic? absolutely.

So if the CDC told him he could travel at his will, are they just doing this to be politically correct and avoid getting slapped with law suits for discriminating? Why couldn't the Fed Gov't detain him as a suspected terrorist?

Well here's my slant on this whole TB scare.

My son tested positive on a routine TB test when he was in the 3rd grade, 7 years ago. Several tests later, X-rays, and visits to the pediatric infectious diseases dr., it was never determined where he contracted the TB. Now, his was never "active" so he was never contagious; but someone was. Everyone in the family was tested. We had no foreign nannies or housecleaners in our household; no close friends had Eastern European (major carriers today) nannies or third world employees that he could've been in close contact. But it had to have happened while he was in the 3rd grade because he was tested annually.

He had to take a daily dose of the government req'd meds. for 10 months, never missing a single dose. I was allowed to administer his meds at home; he didn't have to take them with a witness present at a TB clinic (which is extremely important for the homeless or drug addicts, otherwise, if they miss doses or just stop, there's where the drug resistance begins). He's fine now but he will always test positive for the remainder of his life.

Now here's what's so peculiar about this whole thing. We were called into a meeting by the head of the infectious diseases dept. & told by everyone on the staff that we must not tell anyone outside of our immediately family (that being the 3 of us) and not tell the elem. school. They said it would be all over the local media & cause unwarranted panic. They said it's unfortunate but that's the way people react today - - over react. So we followed the dr's orders. He probably contracted it on a plane or public transportation to Chicago, in an elevator, who knows. This is where it was explained to us how widespread it is & to cause a panic and undo stress would be futile. It can happen to anybody, anywhere, anytime. It really can never be tracked down to any one single carrier.

I would never have dreamed something like this could've happened. It's no wonder I'm a germaphobe. But it's a education in life. We're better educated now and are thankful.

:shock: now that's a scary story jr ! my mom had tb right after her and pop got married and she had to be in a tb hospital for over a year.

Didn't there used to be special TB treatment centers all over the US?

Didn't there used to be special TB treatment centers all over the US?

i'm not sure. mom was in a hospital about 40 miles from home.

Interesting fact . .. Did you know that doctors used to want you to smoke if you had TB? No joke. Something about making you cough. :idontno:

Interesting fact . .. Did you know that doctors used to want you to smoke if you had TB? No joke. Something about making you cough. :idontno:

that's scary :creepy:

I'm curious, does this guy in Atlanta have "active" TB? I'm just afraid that all this panic is pointless if he's not active. And considering his age, he's probably not. Now, if he'd gone undiagnosed for years and he was 60 or 70, then there'd be cause for worry and panic. Had I not been educated, I'd be right there with the general public. But the key is, if it's active equaling "contagious." Poor guy is being treated like the scourge of society and it's the media causing the hype.

It's all very interesting.

JohnRudy, according to the news, he does have an active case and it isn't regular TB. It is "Extensively Drug Resistant TB, which cannot be treated by the 1st and 2nd tiers of medications. Basically, if he spreads it, there is not much controlling it, without quarantining people, which the CDC stopped doing after all of the hell raisers fighting for the rights of AIDS patients, not that AIDS spreads in the same and easy manner as TB.

This guy's story is a sad one. However, he may have put others at risk because of his lack of thought for anyone's life, other than his own. That mentality is right up there with Anarchy, in my opinion. "Screw you, I'm saving myself." When a collective group of people get that mindset, look out.

Somewhere, I heard that this guy didn't graduate from the Naval Academy due to disciplinary problems. :idontno: He transferred to UGA to complete school. Anyone else hear this?

Any news on how he contracted this TB?

Any news on how he contracted this TB?

Maybe he contracted it from riding on an airplane with someone who had it and didn't care about the other passengers' lives.

Any news on how he contracted this TB?

Yes, they're saying that he has traveled worldwide, including to some third-world countries. You never know what you'll catch there. That's why Big D was advised to get hepatitis vaccines. But there is no vaccine for TB as far as I know. So it's just a craps shoot for that disease.

BTW the speakerlawfirm.com website is still shut down.

JohnRudy, according to the news, he does have an active case and it isn't regular TB. It is "Extensively Drug Resistant TB, which cannot be treated by the 1st and 2nd tiers of medications. Basically, if he spreads it, there is not much controlling it, without quarantining people, which the CDC stopped doing after all of the hell raisers fighting for the rights of AIDS patients, not that AIDS spreads in the same and easy manner as TB.

This guy's story is a sad one. However, he may have put others at risk because of his lack of thought for anyone's life, other than his own. That mentality is right up there with Anarchy, in my opinion. "Screw you, I'm saving myself." When a collective group of people get that mindset, look out.

I agree that it does sound as tho his # 1 concern was for himself. I was just curious if had an active case. I realize that it's not regular TB, it's drug resistant, etc., etc., etc. I've been following this case very closely. This is the first (your psot here) where I've actually heard that it IS active. They've been saying on GMA that is not active, but IS drug resistant - - big difference.

I'm not minimizing his disease by any means. This is very serious. It's frightening.

JR, you asked if reports suggested that he had an active case of TB, noting that active equated to contagious. From what I've read, he is contagious, even though he is "low-risk". Why do you think everyone who sat several rows around him on the flights is being tested and retested for TB? If he were not contagious, there would be no need for that, nor would there be any reason to quarantine him. "Speaker became the first infected person quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963." You don't just quarantine a person for no reason, especially if the person is a non-contagious personal injury lawyer, whose father in law works on TB at the CDC. His wife states that she hasn't kissed him. I'm sure that has to do with him being contagious, as most newlyweds like to kiss a lot.

From the New York Post:
Dr. Charles Daley, chief of the National Jewish Hospital's infectious-disease division, said he is optimistic Speaker can be cured because he is appears to be in the early stages of the disease.
He is "a young, healthy individual" who is "doing extremely well," Dr. Gwen Huitt said Thursday.
"By conventional methods that we traditionally use in the public health arena ... he would be considered low infectivity at this point in time," she said. "He is not coughing, he is healthy, he does not have a fever."




..."Even though U.S. officials had put Speaker on a warning list, he caught a flight to Montreal and then drove across the U.S. border on May 24 at Champlain, N.Y. A border inspector who checked him disregarded a computer warning to stop Speaker, officials said Thursday.


The unidentified inspector later said the infected man seemed perfectly healthy and that he thought the warning was merely "discretionary,"



...The inspector ran Speaker's passport through a computer, and a warning - including instructions to hold the traveler, don a protective mask in dealing with him, and telephone health authorities - popped up, officials said. About a minute later, Speaker was instead cleared to continue on his journey, according to officials familiar with the records. The inspector has since been removed from border duty."
:shock: :bang: