Common Folk Using Common Sense

A tuberculosis patient under the first federal quarantine since 1963 left an Atlanta hospital Thursday and arrived at a Denver facility that specializes in respiratory disorders.

The man has been identified by the Associated Press as Andrew Speaker, 31, of Atlanta. Speaker is a personal injury attorney who practices law with his father in Atlanta.

Yep, an ambulance chaser.

His tuberculosis was discovered when he had a chest X-ray in January 2007 for a rib injury. For five months since that diagnosis this attorney continued to try cases in courtrooms across metro Atlanta. He ate in local restaurants and attended social events. He took no precautions to prevent the spread of tuberculosis to other people in came in contact with. He never wore a mask.

Speaker said that he specifically told Fulton County health officials he was planning to leave the country for his wedding in Greece, then a honeymoon tour of Europe. He says they only told him they “preferred” he not travel. When pressed on what that meant, the man said they didn’t say he couldn’t travel.

• Health official: “You have TB. It’s very contagious and you should not fly.”
• Andrew Speaker: “Hmmm … I think I’ll fly to several countries then and infect as many people as I can. Thanks anyway.”

Speaker was diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB prior to leaving the country. While that’s serious, an even more serious diagnosis of extensively drug-resistant TB, also called XDR TB, was made after he was in Europe.

The man flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385, also listed as Delta Air Lines codeshare Flight 8517, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He and his bride also took four shorter flights while in Europe – Paris to Athens on May 14; Athens to Thira Island May 16; Mykonos Island to Athens May 21; and Athens to Rome May 21 – but CDC officials said there was less risk of infection during the shorter hops compared to the trans-Atlantic flights, which each lasted eight hours or more.

While he was honeymooning in Rome, CDC officials asked him to agree to indefinite isolation in an Italian hospital. Instead he fled. Despite the CDC putting the man on airlines’ “no fly” lists and having his passport flagged, the man and his bride were able to elude health authorities and sneak back into the United States by flying to Canada and driving across the border last week.

On May 24, the man flew from Rome to Prague on Czech Air Flight 0727, then flew to Montreal aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 and drove into the U.S., according to CDC officials.

“I’m a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person,” he is quoted as saying.

“Just another example of the ‘Me First, Screw You’ attitude in this country,” I have been quoted as saying.

While Georgia health officials can obtain a court order to restrict the actions of a person or to even involuntarily commit them for treatment, state epidemiologist Susan Lance said the individual first needs to be served with a medical order telling them what they can and cannot do. Fulton County health officials have said they tried to hand deliver Speaker a medical order telling him he could not travel, but that his home was vacant and he was not at his office when they tried to serve him with it on May 11.

“This is insane to me, that I have an armed guard outside my door, when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing,” said Speaker.

The initial charges against him should be 80 counts of attempted murder. Hopefully they won’t need to upgrade any to murder.

Now let’s go over the facts:

• Speaker knew he had multi-drug resistant TB before he left the US.
• With any TB diagnosis, regardless of severity, a ‘highly educated, highly intelligent’ person would not get on a airplane and risk the lives of other people. Given his actions he becomes highly morally responsible for anything that happens to anyone he infected.
• Speaker was encouraged not to leave the country, both for his safety as well as the safety of the traveling public.
• Speaker left the country anyway, possibly exposing innocent people to multi-drug resistant TB.
• While in Europe Speaker learned that he had extensively drug-resistant TB.
• While in Europe Speaker was told to present himself to Italian medical authorities, both for his safety as well as the safety of the traveling public.
• Speaker traveled throughout Europe anyway, possibly exposing innocent people to extensively drug-resistant TB.
• Speaker then flew another long trans-Atlantic flight into Canada because he knew US authorities were looking for him. From there he quietly slithered back to Atlanta like a thief in the night.
• Andrew Speaker repeatedly placed the enjoyment of his wedding above the safety of innocent travelers. This was felony selfish.

Ironically, Speaker’s new father-in-law works in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory aimed at preventing the disease. Bob Cooksey has co-authored scholarly papers on tuberculosis. Cooksey said he gave his son-in-law “fatherly advice” when he learned Speaker had contacted the disease. He also said that had he known his daughter was at risk, he would have not have allowed her to travel.

If this fool had been infected by someone else with TB on the flight he would sue the socks off of the airline, the passenger, the flight crew, the food vendor, Budweiser, the pretzel vendor on the plane, Brooks Brothers for making a suit that is not TB resistant, the Italian government, the airport authority, the hospital where the said passenger was diagnosed, the doctor, the WHO, the CDC, and last but not least the donkey the passenger rode to the hospital.

Now just imagine if your spouse/child/grandchild sat next to Andrew Speaker on one of his oh-so-important flights.

Now just imagine if your spouse/child/grandchild dies because Andrew Speaker thought it was far more important to risk exposing hundreds of innocent people to extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis than it was to postpone his miserable wedding for a time.

This degree of selfishness should not go unpunished.

tuberculosis, Atlanta, Andrew Speaker, Fulton County, TB, CDC

Spread The Word: