E-Mails: TB Patient's Family Was No Help

[RedEarth]

Source: AP

ATLANTA (AP) - Health officials trying to stop a globetrotting honeymooner with a dangerous form of tuberculosis got little assistance from his lawyer father and his future father-in-law, a TB expert who not only balked at stopping the Greek wedding but went to the ceremony himself, according to e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

Some of the 181 pages of e-mails, obtained through a public records request, suggest that the 31-year-old groom's father, Ted Speaker, was clipped and combative in phone conversations with health officials.

E-mails from Fulton County officials portray groom Andrew Speaker's father-in-law, CDC microbiologist Robert Cooksey, as disappointingly unhelpful, at least before May 22, when tests showed that Andrew Speaker had a more dangerous form of TB than previously understood.

"This is terrible news. I hope the father-in-law will be more forthcoming now," reads a May 22 e-mail written by Beverly DeVoe-Payton, director of the Georgia Division of Public Health's tuberculosis program, to other state health officials regarding the new test results.

He knew he had TB and that is was resistant to some drugs when he left Atlanta, but he didn't find out until he was in Europe that it was the highly dangerous form. When federal health officials eventually reached him by phone with the new test results, they warned him not to fly commercial aircraft, and urged him to turn himself in to local health officials. Instead, Speaker and his bride flew to Montreal, rented a car and drove across the U.S. border, even though officials had flagged his passport. He is now in a Denver hospital being treated.



Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070612/D8PNDGF85.html

[Kagemusha]

1. Funny what public records requests can do when the govt doesn't fight them

No wonder they're not fans of the father in law and have been looking into his behavior.

[MADem]

2. I find it a-fucking-mazing that they FLAGGED this guy's passport, and still he gets in.

I'm on the "Hassle List" at the airport, and they never, ever let me catch a break. I get the Big Red S and the full shakedown every time I fly. Without fail.

Now, if they can fuck with me every single time I take to the air, is it so hard to just ONCE be able to nab this guy?

What an incompetent federal bureaucracy. It's reaching those low and comedic standards we used to laugh at, in smug superior fashion, when encountering the same sort of absurdity in other countries.

[EFerrari]

5. Yep. We've become our own joke. n/t

[Kagemusha]

6. It's starting to look like the CDC father in law told him how to evade the govt

I mean, surely the CDC has internally run scenarios about how someone might flout the protections. In other words, to tell "TB Man" exactly where the holes are and how best to attack them.

And that border guard who let the guy in DESPITE seeing that his passport was flagged for disease control purposes ("he looks healthy to me") did something completely unforgiveable, I think.

Keep in mind he flew to Canada and rented a car to drive across the border too. That's a tactic similar to what authorities are afraid terrorists might try. I would find it highly disturbing, if not altogether surprising, that the CDC employed father in law in this case actually provided that advice. He's said to have provided "fatherly advice" and that raises a big red flag with me. A CDC employee helping a patient with extreme drug-resistant TB evade emergency disease control measures to sneak back into the US? That would not be cool. At all.

[kimmylavin]

8. I get searched all the time, too!

So apparently, TB is not a problem, but my 12-oz bottle of Pantene is a threat to national security.

[MADem]

9. Obviously, you must have a name that has some of the same letters in it that

some 'terrist' has!! Or maybe you're an outspoken Democrat! Or who knows? It is plain that they aren't just bloated, they're INCOMPETENT. And that, sadly, is probably the scariest thing of all!

We're in good company, at any rate. I know that every poor slob named DAVID NELSON gets an extra look...so do EDWARD MOORES (as in Edward Moore Kennedy--he had to use his clout to get that shit fixed, they actually put him on the NO FLY LIST!).

Our tax dollars at work...!

[terisan]

3. I am sceptical of the State of GA and Fulton County Heath Dept +CDC. Too much CYA.

It seems to me that these outfits may be working hard right now to cover themselves.

[Tyler Durden]

4. Somebody needs to get FIRED and SUED.

And then maybe jailed.

[demokatgurrl]

7. call me paranoid...

but I've wondered whether this was somehow deliberate. Maybe an "experiment" of some kind by the father in law, to see just what would happen? (Not that he deliberately gave the guy TB, but once he got it, just let him get on the plane to see how contagious it was?) Ok, maybe that's a bit much. But for SURE they knew they were doing something not at all kosher. Why would they record the conversations if they didn't expect repercussions?

[LisaL]

11. Why on Earth would FIL try to figure out how contagious TB is,

considering studies on this very subject have already been done?
That's how we know that smear negative people with active TB can still infect others, although at lower rates than smear positive people.
And all it only takes is a few minutes to google those studies.

[SemperEadem]

10. reckless disregard for others

these people are despicable.