Tuberculosis On A Plane

[Outshined]

This guy deliberately disobeyed the authorities' orders to avoid travel and report to a hospital after being notified that he had a contagious, drug-resistant strain of TB. He chose to put others at serious risk for his own gain, in my opinion.

They told him not to travel, but he flew to France to get married in Greece, which is where they contacted him and told him he was positive for the disease and to report to a hospital in Italy. Since he was flagged from inbound flights to the US, he instead flew to Canada, thereby knowingly exposing hundreds of people to this disease. His excuse: he wanted to get medical attention in the US, and that he is "an intelligent well-educated, successful man".

He will be in quarantine indefinitely, and treatment may last for years if he survives. I feel this guy acted selfishly and put a lot of people at risk.

If my family had been on one of those flights, it would chap my butt pretty good.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?Content...46-3c0b37ec76ca

[JcDean78]

110% agree with you. The fact that the MSM seems to take his side adds insult to injury. Where is individual responsibility? Where is the accountability? This man needs to prosecuted criminally.

[Blessed]

I have been keeping up on this with the news. I can't believe the insanity of this man... what was he thinking? We shall never know.

[Outshined]

Now we find out that he's a personal-injury lawyer. I suppose that will come in handy when the lawsuits start rolling in from the other passengers...

I just can't fathom the arrogant, self-centered attitude he's shown so far.

[pam]

I totally agree with all the comments. So now what if someone on that plane contacted this and dies? Does he get charged with manslaughter or murder?

[Dror]

On the news a couple of days ago they said he claimed that authorities had not told him he couldn't travel. Yet when he returns to the U.S., he does so via Canada in order to avoid the authorities! This tells me he knew perfectly well he shouldn't travel. Then yesterday I heard that he had indeed been told more than once not to travel.

What was he thinking?

[FrankJL]

Of course he went to Canada....everyone knows their socialized medicine is better then the care he would have received in the US..

[miztrniceguy]

someone should shoot him....when does hunting season start?

[pam]

I never heard what the outcome was...but this also reminded me of a man (and I use that term very loosely) who had been charged with multiple counts of attempted murder. It seems he had a very strong hatred of women. So being HIV positive he had sexual relations with hundreds of women hoping to infect each one of them. Now there is a guy that needs to be taken out and used as a target during hunting season.

[Guest Username-Removed]

The situation is that he's hospitalized for at least 3 months. It will probably be longer. What screwed him up was that he felt fine, wasnt caughing, and yet disobeyed the authorities anyways. The really ironic thing is that his new father in law works for the CDC on tuberculosis! LOL.

The whole thing is wack. Lets hope nobody got sick from him. But, I think his atty days are over, besides defending himself.

[ldsrebel]

That was so sad....

[Guest Username-Removed]

You have to look at that situation and wonder .... How does a fairly well-to-do young healthy atty get a very drug resistant strain of tuberculosis? I keep wondering about his new father-in-law who works for the CDC. Im sure, at least, there is a good movie in that story - but it would probably be fiction..... maybe.

[FrankJL]

ya...I see more then just irony in the fact his father-in-law works with this stuff at the CDC, and somehow this guy becomes one of like 3 people a year that get this infection. Something is fishy here...

[Holly3278]

I agree with what has been already said. This man acted selfishly and irresponsibly. He put others lives at risk for his own gain. He deserves to be criminally prosecuted.

[susieSA]

This would make me not angry.... This would make me furious....

I have just got back from a holiday to SA & if I were to find out that someone like this man was on the same flight as us.... Man, I don't even want to tell you what I would do...

How can they call him intelegent.... Clearly he is not...

What does he think gives him the right to do that... To put so many other people at risk for his own stupidity... What about the children on the same flights as him?

[Guest Emma Hale Smith]

Lawyer's Tuberculosis Strain Downgraded

This is an AOL link, so I listed the article here. i hope that's okay.

DENVER (July 4) - New tests show the globe-trotting American lawyer who caused an international health scare by traveling with a dangerous form of tuberculosis has a less severe form of the disease, doctors said Tuesday.

The dramatic announcement from physicians treating Andrew Speaker raised immediate questions about the accuracy of the diagnosis by U.S. government health officials who had ordered Speaker quarantined in May.

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stood by its earlier test and its action to isolate Speaker. And both Speaker's doctor in Denver and an official with the CDC who appeared at a news conference here said the public health response should be the same to both forms of drug-resistant TB.

"The public health actions that CDC took in this case, and are continuing to take, are sound and appropriate," said the CDC's Dr. Mitchell Cohen.

For the patient himself, the news that he apparently has a more treatable form of TB means he may avoid surgery and has a much better chance for a cure.

"These new test results are good news for Mr. Speaker. His prognosis has improved," said Dr. Charles Daley, who is treating Speaker at National Jewish Medical and Research Center. "We now have more effective medications available to fight his disease and may be able to treat him successfully without surgery."

It was also good news for any airline passengers who might have caught TB from Speaker while on one of his trans-Atlantic flights in May. The new diagnosis means their TB also stands a better chance of being treated, Daley said. Cohen said the CDC won't know until late July or August whether anyone may have contracted the disease from the 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer.

In a statement, Speaker said he was relieved by the new diagnosis.

"The truth is that my condition is just the same as it was back in early May, long before there was a huge health scare, and back when I was allowed to carry on my daily life and was told, 'I was not a threat to anyone,'" Speaker said.

He also gave a harsh critique of the government's handling of the case: "In the future I hope they realize the terribly chilling effect they can have when they come after someone and their family on a personal level. They can in a few days destroy an entire family's reputation, ability to make a living, and good name."

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper Tuesday night, he said he believed the CDC needed to apologize.

"I think they owe apologies to the people that they scared," he said.

He continued: "They created a huge international panic. They scared, you know, millions of people around the world."

For the past month, Speaker has been isolated at the Denver hospital, which specializes in treating TB and other respiratory diseases. His bride, Sarah, has paid regular visits.

Speaker was diagnosed in May with extensively drug resistant TB, based on an analysis of a sample taken in March by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The XDR-TB, as it is called, is rare, extremely difficult to treat and is a growing public health threat.

But later tests in Denver indicate Speaker's TB is a slightly more treatable form of the disease, multidrug-resistant TB. And CDC's own retesting of its original sample from Speaker now matches the results in Denver. Multidrug-resistant TB can be treated with some antibiotics that the more severe form resists.

Daley said he didn't know why the initial tests by CDC showed that Speaker had XDR. "I don't think we'll ever know why this happened," he said.

The CDC's Cohen explained that reading these test results is not a black-and-white case.

It's possible for a couple of types of TB to be in one sample, and in one patient, he said. That is one of several possible explanations why CDC might have found XDR, while subsequent test results show MDR, Cohen said.

The CDC's diagnosis of XDR-TB was a key factor cited by CDC chief Dr. Julie Gerberding in issuing a quarantine order against Speaker. He had flown to Greece to be married in May despite warnings from health officials that he shouldn't travel.

At the time, he was diagnosed with MDR-TB and officials were awaiting results on whether his TB could be the rarer XDR form. Cohen said Tuesday that the same advice is appropriate for both forms of the disease.

His case became an international public health story and even raised questions about U.S. border security. Congress held a hearing on the CDC's handling of the case and Speaker's father-in-law, a TB researcher who works for the CDC, also came under scrutiny.

Speaker ignored federal health officials' warnings to get medical help in Europe and not to get on an airplane. Instead, he and his wife flew to Canada and crossed the border into the United States even though his name was on a no-fly list given to border guards.

He was briefly placed under federal quarantine and later sent to the hospital in Denver.

The incident prompted a hunt for passengers on the cross-Atlantic flights taken by Speaker so they could be tested for the disease.

[Outshined]

I'm glad to hear it is a curable strain of the disease, and it in no way clears him of wrongdoing.

[susieSA]

I so agree with that