WHAT A HEEL!: Globetrotting Tort Lawyer Exposes Airline Passengers, Crews To Rare Form Of TB
Georgia tort lawyer Andrew Speaker, 31, who is now receiving treatment in Denver for XDR-TB, an "extensively drug-resistant" strain of the highly contagious and often fatal respiratory disease, took a flight from Atlanta to Paris - even though his doctors and Fulton Country health officials told him he could expose others to the disease if he went through with his plans to get married in Greece.
Almost two weeks later, he flew from Prague to Montreal so he could drive back into the U.S. for treatment - even after health authorities caught up with him on his honeymoon and informed him that he had a rare, dangerous form of TB, and ordered him into the custody of Italian officials so he could be quarantined.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working closely with the airlines on which Speaker flew to find and administer TB tests to crew members and passengers sitting within two rows of him. Fortunately, he was not coughing or exhibiting other symptoms of the disease, and tests indicate the amount of TB bacteria in his system was low so people who had prolonged contact with him are not believed to be at high risk of contracting TB. But CDC Director Julie Gerberding tells The Associated Press that U.S. health officials have had little experience with this type of TB, and are not entirely sure whether it has a different transmission pattern than a less virulent form.
Although Speaker appears to have evaded the safeguards that health officials in the U.S. and Europe were putting into place, albeit ineffectually, to contain his movements, he is not facing prosecution, according to health officials. But passengers who came into contact with him are likely to file civil suits against him and the airlines he flew.
The CDC initially refused to release the man’s name to avoid “stigmatizing” him, but the news media found it out and disseminated his photo so anyone who may have been in close contact with him can contact the CDC or their physicians. In The Stiletto’s opinion, anyone who is this callous, self-centered and indifferent toward the well-being of his fellow human beings deserves to be stigmatized.
Who was it that pointed out that 'the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact?' If we surrender the ability to protect ourselves from deadly diseases in the name of 'Civil Rights' we might as well drink the cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid (think Jonestown) and be done with it!
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