Inspector Ignored Warning On TB Patient
Man With Dangerous Strain Of Tuberculosis ID'd As Lawyer, Son-In-Law Of TB Expert
-
Play CBS Video Video TB Patient Flown To Denver The XDR-TB patient, Andrew Speaker, has been identified as a personal injury lawyer and Naval Academy graduate. He has been flown to National Jewish Medical Center in Denver. Kelly Cobiella reports.
-
Video Dealing With A TB Epidemic A recent study revealed that half the states in America would run out of hospital beds within two weeks of a tuberculosis outbreak. Nancy Cordes has more.
-
Video The Man With Tuberculosis The government wants to know how a man could fly to Europe when he knew he had a rare for of TB. Meanwhile, health officials are searching for passengers on the flights. Kelly Cobiella reports.
-
-
This 2005 photo made available on May 31, 2007, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Dr. Robert Cooksey, a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of tuberculosis and other bacteria. Cooksey is the father-in-law of Andrew Speaker, the honeymooner quarantined May 25 with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis. (AP Photo/CDC, James Gathany)
-
Andrew Harley Speaker (The Speaker Law Firm)
-
William Allstetter, a spokesman for National Jewish Medical and Research Center, describes the treatment that a Georgia patient with drug-resistant tuberculosis will receive in Denver during a news conference at the hospital on May 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
-
-
News Tools TB Traveler Track the itinerary of man infected with tuberculosis who traveled to Europe and back.
-
Fast Facts Tuberculosis An overview of the disease, how it is spread, its symptoms and treatment.
-
Interactive HealthWatch Explore health issues including AIDS, cancer and antibiotics.
The unidentified inspector explained that he was no doctor but that the infected man seemed perfectly healthy and that he thought the warning was merely "discretionary," officials briefed on the case told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is still under investigation.
The patient was identified as Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old personal injury lawyer who returned last week from his honeymoon in Europe. His new father-in-law, Robert C. Cooksey, is a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention microbiologist specializing in TB and other bacteria.
Speaker is now under quarantine at a hospital in Denver. He is first infected person to be quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963.
Speaker will stay in a room with specially designed ventilation to prevent germs from escaping, and doctors will try as many as five different antibiotics first, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella. If that doesn't work, they'll resort to surgery.
Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to federal health authorities. Nor did the CDC explain how the case came to their attention. However, Cooksey said that neither he nor his CDC laboratory was the source of his son-in-law's infection.
The disclosure that the patient is a lawyer — and specifically a personal injury lawyer — outraged many people on the Internet and elsewhere. Some travelers who flew on the same planes with Speaker angrily accused him of selfishly putting hundreds of other people's lives in danger.
"It's still very scary," 21-year-old Laney Wiggins, one of more than two dozen University of South Carolina-Aiken students who are getting skin tests for TB. "That is an outrageous number of people that he was very reckless with their health. It's not fair. It's selfish."
Speaker had told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he did not find out until he was already in Rome that it was an extensively drug-resistant strain considered especially dangerous. He said that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he delay his wedding.
Despite later warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he decided to fly to Canada and sneak back from there to the U.S. instead of flying, believing he would not survive if he did not reach the U.S., he said.
He was quarantined May 25, a day after he was allowed to pass through the border crossing at Champlain, N.Y., along the Canadian border.
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 Homeland Security Department is investigating.
"The border agent who questioned that person is at present performing administrative duties," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, adding those duties do not include checking people at the land border crossing.
Colleen Kelley, president of the union that represents customs and border agents, declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but said "public health issues were not receiving adequate attention and training" within the agency.
On Thursday, a tan and healthy-looking Speaker was flown from Atlanta to Denver, accompanied by his wife and federal marshals, to Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center, where doctors planned to isolate him and treat him with oral and intravenous antibiotics.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.





- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 12
- next
See all 233 CommentsTia smith
<a rel="dofollow" href="http://www.legalx.net" rel="dofollow">Personal Injury Lawyer</a>
----------------------
DX
---------------------------
<a href="http://www.legalx.net">Personal Injury Lawyer</a>-Personal Injury Lawyer
----------------------
DX
---------------------------
[url=http://www.legalx.net]Personal Injury Lawyer[/url]-Personal Injury Lawyer
so what's new
im homless 7+years not dead despiute govt kkesp spulling rug out.
but tht will end soona nd the tacx savings to beign
im not to hafavore d dual diagnoses part your wat y to disblity.
i ahve phiysical/ psyche.
i was told by Va and more
the soemone at hud we fdont care what they do woith theomoney fro wommen and specail needs 10 of 12 woemns beds to drunk men.) too many meical conditons...
none cares none prevents.
Posted by SusanHelit
Agreed
"Dr. and Mrs. Robert C. Cooksey of Roswell are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Sarah Spence, to Andrew Harley Speaker, son of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Speaker of Buckhead.
The bride-elect is an honor graduate of The Georgia Institute of Technology and a third year merit scholar at Emory University School of Law."
So, they got engaged on April 24th and felt they could not postpone a May 12th wedding in Europe....can anyone count forward 40 weeks from April 24th? The girl's stats show she isn't without some brain function. Had to be some reason other than cussed "I wanna!!" that made them risk the lives of others so that they could have a dream wedding only three weeks after getting engaged.
The border guard took far too much authority upon him/her self and should be fired.
Even now he seems to have no difficulty although doctors continue to claim he has some disease that is untreatable and nearly always fatal.
And it's not like any cases of this disease are showing up--they're having to search very hard to even find people he might have infected.
There is something very weird going on here, and the father in law connection is odd too. I fault the doctors not the patient.
He needs to be strung up by his you know what and then everybody can take turns throwing stones at him.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 12
- next
See all 233 Comments