TB Patient: "I'm Very Sorry"
Atlanta Attorney With Dangerous Strain Of Tuberculosis Says CDC "Abandoned" Him In Europe
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TB Man's Ties To CDC Biologist
The lawyer whose honeymoon plans shook up the world, XDR tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker, is the son-in-law of a microbiologist for the CDC. Kelly Cobiella reports.
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Students Exposed To TB
Harry Smith speaks to two University of South Carolina students who were exposed to tuberculosis while traveling from Atlanta to Paris on the same flight as confirmed TB carrier Andrew Speaker.
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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.
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Andrew Harley Speaker (The Speaker Law Firm)
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"I'm very sorry for any grief or pain that I've caused anyone," Andrew Speaker, the 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer at the center of the health scare, said.
Speaker said none of his doctors, nor officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was contagious or that anyone was at risk.
In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," from his hospital room in Denver, Speaker explained that flying overseas for his wedding and honeymoon, while not encouraged by health officials, was never forbidden.
"I hope they understand, that based on what I was told, I didn’t think I was making that gamble," Speaker said.
"I've lived in this state of constant fear and anxiety for a week now, and to think that someone else now is feeling that, I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way.
"I don't expect those people to ever forgive me. I just hope they understand that I truly never meant them any harm," he said.
Jason Vik, one of the people Speaker put at risk, was glad to get the apology, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella.
"I'm very impressed with him, I'm glad he came out and apologized," he said.
Vik's tuberculosis test came back with no signs of bacteria in his system. Although he must be tested again in two months, he says it's a relief.
Speaker's father, also a lawyer, taped a meeting with the CDC prior to leaving for his honeymoon.
"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."
Speaker, his new wife and her 8-year-old daughter were already in Europe for the wedding 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 did not get back to a specialized clinic in Denver, he would die.
"Before I left, I knew that it was made clear to me, that in order to fight this, I had one shot, and that was going to be in Denver," he said. If doctors in Europe tried to treat him and it went wrong, he said, "it's very real that I could have died there."
Additionally, Speaker, a personal injury attorney, could sue the federal government for being quarantined on the basis of federal regulations that some scholars see as unconstitutional.
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 Cobiella. If that doesn't work, they'll resort to surgery.
Speaker, however, could be sued by fellow airline passengers, especially if any caught the disease from him — which some legal scholars say is much more likely.
"He may be personally liable if someone contracts TB" from being near him on his recent flights to and from Europe, said Peter Jacobson, a University of Michigan professor of public health law. "I can see a jury coming down very hard on someone like that who willfully ignored advice not to travel."
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.
As a result, the U.S. border inspector who allowed Speaker back into the country, disregarding a computer warning to stop the man and don protective gear, has been removed from border duty, officials said Thursday.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 282 CommentsWe are doomed as a people if we don't start thinking of "us" instead of "I".
Arrogant runt took the chance of infecting hundreds maybe thousands of people of which some surely would have died. And maybe those he infected haven't been ID'ed yet!!
Also...getting back into the US via Canada border after Homeland Security put a stop this guy now alert--and it was ignored.
Congrats to all you Homeland Security idiots who think we are safer because GW built a huge cabinet department that is....uneffective.
What a waste of our money...again, George.
A taxpayer-funded "legal aid" lawyer can sue authorities for "unconstitutionally" stopping them from wandering around and infecting everyone(freedom of association and all that.
It's something to think about the next time you consider rolling down the car window and giving that guy at the off ramp of the interstate a little pocket change......
It's been about 6 years since 9/11 and HomeLand Security is still broken. We're doomed.......
What a joke
And the border inspector saw he was flagged and didn't bother to do anything about it. Yeah, I would definately believe a warning to wear protective gear around a person is "discretionary". Not! Just goes to show you that all the laws and regulations they put in place are absolutely useless if people don't follow them. It seems that every time we have on of these major problems it's because someone didn't follow the instructions or guidelines that were in place.
His crime is the same as someone who knows they have AIDS sleeping with people without telling them.
He wasn't abondoned by anybody. Anyone with half a brain would know that if they had TB, any form of TB, contagious or not, should not be travelling abroad. If any of those countries or airlines had known of his condition, they would have denied him access. Had this condition been disclosed for his passport application, he would have been denied. He knew all of this, and chose to go anyway.
His father in law is guilty too. He no doubt was involved in the 'clearly illegal' clandestine flight back to the US, and knew more than anyone the risk to others. The CDC should have already fired him.
I'm not completely sure he broke any laws for criminal prosecution, but their should be. At the very least, hundreds of people have massive personal injury lawsuits to file.
this guy is a tool...
As for the border control agent at the US/Canada border, he needs to be fired and prosecuted for choosing to disregard an order. When he scaned the passport, and a health warning came up, saying the person should be detained, and that a mask should be worn, how the hell could he just decide "well, he didn't look sick to me"! You are not a doctor, you jerk! What if it was a terrorist suicide killer with a deadly infection? He may not LOOK sick, but you think you can just disregard orders and let him in anyway?
This guy does have a point about the CDC doing little to help him. Blame those in charge of taking care of this, not the one infected!
Since this virus has been released into our country, we need to prepare our communities for a possible epidemic.
For now, it looks as if everyone involved lucked out, but time will tell.
Although I can't blame the guy for wanting to get back to the USA rather than end up being stuck in Europe if the US decided to block his reentry, there are still many things this guy could have done to protect the health of others around him. For one thing, he didn't even bother to wear a mask on his return flight! He could have negotiated and cooperated with the CDC and booked a charter flight home, or taken ocean transport, or compromised in a number of other ways, but his selfishness won out over his concern for his fellow man, and hopefully they can prosecute him as an example to others.
I think it's very peculiar that his father-in-law is one of a very, very limited number of people who have access to this rare pathogen. One can't help but wonder if someone didn't want Daddy's Little Girl marrying this selfish jerk.
Just because you are sick (and how would the government know if they had not illegally viewed his medical records) does not mean you lose your civil rights and right to freedom. Face it, the government blew it on this one.
I say everyone that was near this scum lawyer sue him. Then drag his happy azz back to Europe and let them at him
Thanks a lot, Speaker. You're a sweetheart!
This is all very fishy. His father-in-law a TB expert? He didn't know enough to tell his son-in-law not to travel? He has been working for the CDC for 30+ years and doesn't know better??
I am outraged!!! I would love to know where he got the TB.
If a foreigner did this in the US, he/she would be labeled a terrorist.
If he knew he was contagious, wouldn't he have at least thought about his new wife and the danger to her, and not gone near her?
Maybe he really did think he wasn't contagious, putting someone he loved in danger like that.
The scariest part of this story is the lack of security at the border. He gave the border guard a soft-soap story and the guard ignored the alert to stop him and let this bio-hazard through. How many potential terrorists have and will get through? And, yet, regular airline passengers are put through onerous delays and checks. Let's all just drive to Canada and fly out of their airports. The 9/11 terrorists come in through Canada and the whole point of Homeland Security was to prevent it happening again. We're so worried about hard-working immigrants from South of the border, we neglect to see the real danger is North of the border.
Posted by apdepetris at 09:19 AM : Jun 01, 2007
Just like illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants get a thorough health screen, blood work up, etc and sick ones are denied entry or must go into quarantine. Many Illegal ones come willy nilly across our borders and they are full of leprosy, drug resistand staph infections, TB etc--Texas , California and Arizona have some of the highest rate of TB AND unsual tropical disease and exotic parasites in the US------wonder why?
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