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.

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

that's scary

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. 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:

When I first heard about the case of some guy ignoring the CDC and flying to Europe for a wedding & honeymoon, then heard he was an Atlanta lawyer my thoughts were definitely not positive.

Now as more facts are coming out, it could go either way. He could be an arse who decided to travel through Europe knowing he was sick and possibly contagious and who then snuck back into the US via Canada in hopes of being undetected OR he could have just not known the seriousness of his case, freaked, and tried to return to the US for the best medical care.

Love the fact that his passport was flagged w/ orders to don protective gear and detain him, but he was still let into the US.

It could be that his apology and upcoming GMA exclusive are just damage control because he could be sued.

".......Health law experts said Speaker could be sued if others contract TB.
?There are a number of cases that say a person who negligently transmits an infectious disease could be held liable,? said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University. ?So long as he knew it was infectious, and knew about the appropriate behavior but failed to comply, he could be held liable.?

Uh-oh! Doesn't look good for the CDC - apparently guy's father (another lawyer) taped the meeting w/ the CDC and specifically asked for clarification if he was okay to fly!

"Speaker, 31, said he, his doctors and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all knew he had TB before he flew to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon last month. But he said he was advised that he wasn?t contagious or a danger to anyone. Officials said they would rather he didn?t fly but no one ordered him not to, he said.
He said his father, also a lawyer, taped that meeting.
?My father said, ?OK, now are you saying, prefer not to go on the trip because he?s a risk to anybody, or are you simply saying that to cover yourself?? And they said, we have to tell you that to cover ourself, but he?s not a risk.?
Dr. Steven Katkowsky, director of the Fulton County Department of Health & Wellness, said he was told in early May not to travel to Europe: ?He was told traveling is against medical advice.? Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC?s division of global migration and quarantine, said once Speaker was already in Europe, ?He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back.?
Speaker, his new wife and her 8-year-old daughter were already in Europe when the CDC contacted him and told him to turn himself in immediately at a clinic there and not take another commercial flight.

Speaker said he felt as if the CDC had suddenly ?abandoned him.? He said he believed if he didn?t get to the specialized clinic in Denver, he would die."

Apparently it is not an active case. He had a culture and a sputum test in February, and both those tests came back negative. He was not actively contagious when he flew out of Atlanta, and didn't know he had the XDR form of the disease until he was called with test results in Italy. He was told the CDC would send a jet for him, but then officials called him back and told him the jet would be too expensive, and that he should turn himself in to Italian authorities. He would not have gotten any treatment in Italy.

Yes, what he did was selfish. But I think the really appalling thing is that the CDC allowed him to travel but then was basically prepared to leave an American citizen to fend for himself in another country with no real access to the kind of healthcare he needed.

I think he made a decision based on the results of the sputum tests (a leading XDR TB researcher just let his daughter marry this guy, so clearly he's not shedding disease all over the place) and the knowledge that if he didn't make it to the U.S. he was a dead man walking. We'll only know if he made a smart call or a disasterous one when everyone has the repeat tests in eight weeks.

I think it's horrible that the CDC was so willing to leave this guy in Italy to deal with this on his own, and didn't use a little foresight about human nature and err on the side of caution to bring this guy back to the U.S. on a CDC plane. Seriously, all you need to do is look at the environmental and political boards to know we aren't behaving like our grandparents generation and thinking of others and the greater good...I think a shocking number of people these days are all about tasking care of themselves first and think if everyone else did the same the country would be better off.

This guy Speaker, to me, is a perfect example of what happens when you cut a vital government agencies budget to the bone and then tell a wealthy and priveleged attorney the government can't help him...well, he's going to help himself. Frankly, I'm surprised Fox News isn't making the guy out to be a hero.

scooter, that taped conversation with the CDC, was prior to the CDC discovering that he had XDR TB and the Feds contacting him in Rome, telling him to turn himself in immediately, and that he was not to fly on a commercial airline. Then, he flew to Canada, and drove across the border.

He might get out of some lawsuits for his flights around Europe, prior to the Feds telling him to turn himself in while in Rome, and not to fly anywhere, but anyone on that flight to Canada, could probably win law suits against him for costs of TB testing and stress. You can see how much stress he is in. Now picture a planefull of people, and their family and friends, being this stressed with anxiety of not knowing, loss of work, etc. I am sure that other attornies would love to go after a personal injury lawyer ($$$).

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:

Haruumf. They let this guy through even with these warnings and the transportation authority confiscates my home-made limoncello cream that was in my check-in bag that I planned to bring to the last soiree (all 4 quarts of it!). Perhaps that inspector who let this guy through was still drinking the limoncello while on duty.

Haruumf. They let this guy through even with these warnings and the transportation authority confiscates my home-made limoncello cream that was in my check-in bag that I planned to bring to the last soiree (all 4 quarts of it!). Perhaps that inspector who let this guy through was still drinking the limoncello while on duty.

i was so looking forward to trying limoncello too ! that is a funny comment paula....

scooter, that taped conversation with the CDC, was prior to the CDC discovering that he had XDR TB and the Feds contacting him in Rome, telling him to turn himself in immediately, and that he was not to fly on a commercial airline. Then, he flew to Canada, and drove across the border.

He might get out of some lawsuits for his flights around Europe, prior to the Feds telling him to turn himself in while in Rome, and not to fly anywhere, but anyone on that flight to Canada, could probably win law suits against him for costs of TB testing and stress. You can see how much stress he is in. Now picture a planefull of people, and their family and friends, being this stressed with anxiety of not knowing, loss of work, etc. I am sure that other attornies would love to go after a personal injury lawyer ($$$).

Don't get me wrong, I still think he's a total arse for exposing others once he knew he had it and was contagious (I can think of several ways to get back safely, especially since they seem pretty good at working the media), and I feel SO sorry for those people he exposed to it. I think he is liable and selfish.

Punzy, you bring up a great point about the CDC's failure to get this guy back to the US, for medical help. Our gov't had 4000 military guys looking for three soldiers who were missing, yet they won't spend a little money for fuel to get this guy a flight to Denver? That just doesn't make sense. If for no other reason, the costs should be for research to study this guy and discover how he contracted the disease. The US has private jets leased which are sitting unused. Our Gov't has too many levels of red tape. Talk about abandoning your own citizens.... I think an illegal alien in this country would get better treatment.

Thanks rapunzel, for your medical expertise & knowledge. I only know the very basics on this disease, but do know it has to be active to be contagious. The fact that it's extremely drug resistant still doesn't endanger others... at least not at this stage.

The fact that people who sat near him on the plane (or for that matter, at church, the library, at the supermakt check out, the movie theatre, etc.) are being tested, well that's kind of a given. His new wife hasn't kissed him? Well, I didn't kiss my 9 yr. old son until we found out he was non-contagious. These are necessary precautions.

The CDC is covering their a$$es and following through, as they should.



And I just have to add, everytime I go to our public library, it is filled to the brim with the homeless, coughing & hacking. Who knows if they have TB? Very scary but a very real problem in today's world.

I can think of several ways to get back safely, especially since they seem pretty good at working the media), and I feel SO sorry for those people he exposed to it. I think he is liable and selfish.

Heck, I am surprised that Hillary Clinton didn't send a private jet for him. She is for gov't healthcare, and this would have put her in the spotlight more than $10,000,000 worth of TV ads.

That's why I think they guy is selfish and liable for sneaking back into the US!

How long do you think it would take for a general outrage if the media ran a story about an upstanding US citizen told it was okay to fly so he could go to his own wedding being left to rot in a foreign hospital by the CDC?

Or, his father-in-law (a CDC employee who works w/ TB for crying out loud) couldn't pull some strings?

Or, someone who can afford a wedding in a foreign country couldn't scrape together enough for a private flight?