Infected Man's Father-in-Law - a TB Expert -Offered Advice Quarantined Patient Says He Feared He Wou

Jun 01, 07:20 AM

Current Headlines: From wire reports

ATLANTA - 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.

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 behavior.

And most amazingly, Speaker has a new father-in-law with a vast knowledge of the disease he carried aboard two trans-Atlantic flights.

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.

Cooksey, who has worked for the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination at the Atlanta-based agency for 32 years, is a co- author of numerous papers on the TB bacterium, including strains resistant to rifampin, pyrazinamide and other common TB drugs. His statement said he is "regularly tested for TB" and has never had the infection.

"My son-in-law's TB did not originate from myself or the CDC's labs, which operate under the highest levels of biosecurity," he wrote.

Cooksey attended Speaker's wedding to his daughter, Sarah, said a CDC source who requested anonymity when speaking about an employee's personal life. According to a published announcement, the ceremony was to occur on the Greek island of Santorini. The announcement described the bride as a third-year student at Emory University's law school.

CDC officials earlier this week said the genetic fingerprint of bacterium infecting Speaker did not match any in its library of TB samples. They added, however, that this is not surprising; strains of XDR-TB isolates are rare and the library of them is small.

How Speaker contracted the infection remains a mystery. He appears not to have had the usual risk factors, such as previous incompletely treated TB, imprisonment, homelessness or poor health.

Speaker said in a newspaper interview 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.

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 United States, he said.

"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 cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."

The Homeland Security Department is investigating how Speaker was allowed back into the United States on May 24, after he flew to Canada to avoid being stopped by U.S. health officials.

Along the border crossing at Champlain, N.Y., an inspector ran Speaker's passport through a computer, and a warning - including instructions to hold the traveler, wear 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 inspector has been removed from border duty.

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 still is under investigation.

Some travelers who flew on the same flights as Speaker angrily accused him of 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 because they were on the same flight. "That is an outrageous number of people that he was very reckless with their health. It's not fair. It's selfish."

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.

He is the first infected person to be quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963.

Dr. Gwen Huitt of National Jewish described Speaker as "a young, healthy individual" who is "doing extremely well."

Doctors hope also to determine where he contracted the disease, which has been found around the world and exists in pockets in Russia and Asia.

Speaker's tuberculosis was discovered when he had a chest X-ray in January for a rib injury, Huitt said.

His care - which also could include surgery - could cost between $250,000 to $350,000, she said.

According to a biography posted on a Web site connected with Speaker's law firm, the young lawyer attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in finance, then attended University of Georgia's law school. He is in private practice with his father, Ted Speaker .

Health officials in North America and Europe now are trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on the two trans- Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe.

However, other passengers are not considered at high risk of infection because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in Speaker was low, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.

Health law experts said Speaker could be sued if others contract the disease.

This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and The Washington Post.

(c) 2007 Virginian - Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.