The AP had an interesting story about the TB infected lawyer who endangered others at the Globe and Mail.
One thing is clear about the honeymooner who put airline passengers at risk of getting an especially dangerous strain of tuberculosis: He can't claim ignorance.
No. Just stupidity with a healthy dose of extraordinarily bad judgment.
Andrew Speaker didn't just have doctors' warnings against flying to Europe, and again against flying back. As a personal injury lawyer, he presumably knew something about the dangers of reckless behaviour.
Which is why he should be sued until his eyes bleed.
And most amazingly, Speaker has a new father-in-law with a vast knowledge of the disease he carried aboard two trans-Atlantic flights.
See above.
Bob Cooksey, a CDC microbiologist specializing in TB and other bacteria, said he gave his 31-year-old son-in-law some “fatherly advice” when he learned the young man had contracted the disease. He would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to federal health authorities, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not explain how the case came to their attention.
He let his daughter marry Andy, and presumably enjoy intimate contact with him after learning he has a strain of drug-resistant TB? Is he the beneficiary of a really large insurance policy on her life?
Some travellers who flew on the same flights as Speaker angrily accused him of putting hundreds of other people's lives in danger.
And rightly so.
Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment, fearing he wouldn't survive if he didn't reach the U.S., he said.
Who just happened to go on vacation knowing he had this disease. Riiggghhhht.
“I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I've co-operated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing.”
I’m selfish bastard who has cooperated with with all instructions except the ones I didn’t like, ‘cuz they’re no fun, you know?
The Homeland Security Department is investigating how Mr. Speaker was allowed back into the U.S. on May 24, after he flew to Canada to avoid being stopped by U.S. health officials.
Wait a minute! He feared he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t reach the US, so he flew into Canada???
Along the border crossing at Champlain, N.Y., an inspector ran Mr. Speaker's passport through a computer, and a warning — including instructions to hold the traveller, don a protective mask in dealing with him, and telephone health authorities — popped up, officials said.
Good.
About a minute later, Mr. Speaker was instead cleared to continue on his journey, according to officials familiar with the records.
Of course he was. Move along. Warning of serious health threat, nothing to see here, move along.
The inspector has been removed from border duty.
How comforting.
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.
Am I the only person who finds it disturbing that customs inspectors are making determinations as to the potential health threat a person poses based on appearance?
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.
Do you think??? If Al-Queerda is paying any attention, they just found a new way to hit us.
On Thursday, a tan and healthy-looking Mr. 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.
A few lawsuits will wipe the tan right off him, I’m sure.
Mr. Speaker's father-in-law has worked at the CDC for 32 years and is in the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, where he works with TB and other organisms. He has co-authored papers on diabetes, TB and other infectious diseases.
“As part of my job, I am regularly tested for TB. I do not have TB, nor have I ever had TB,” he said in a statement. “My son-in-law's TB did not originate from myself or the CDC's labs, which operate under the highest levels of biosecurity.”
Certainly an interesting statement. Why did he deny that it came from him? Why did Andy get checked?
“I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically,” Mr. Cooksey said. “Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel.”
How does someone who works with the disease assume that there is no risk to a loved one when there is no determination of the strain? I’m sorry, that doesn’t add up.
Andrew Speaker recently moved from an upscale condominium complex in anticipation of his wedding, former neighbours said. He also wrote in an application to become a board member of his condo association that he was going to Vietnam for five weeks as part of the Rotary Club to act as an ambassador.
Maybe he picked it up there...but if he was so damn healthy, what prompted him to get tested?
Mr. Speaker told the Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. “We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine,” he told the newspaper.
So I decided to go on my honeymoon and put my wife at risk because I felt fine, even though I am a well-educated person and could presumably find out how much risk I pose to others by Googling the name. With intellectual processes that sharp, I'm sure he has a long career ahead of him in Congress. Asshat.
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