Tuberculosis patient was let back into U.S. by border inspector who disregarded warning

A globe-trotting Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed back into the United States by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear, officials said.

Photo: Tuberculosis patient was let back into U.S. by border inspector who disregarded warning

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 Thursday because the matter is still under investigation.

The patient was identified as Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old personal injury lawyer who returned last week from his wedding and honeymoon trip through Italy, the Greek isles and other spots in Europe. His new father-in-law, Robert C. Cooksey, is a microbiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whose specialty is TB and other bacteria.

Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to U.S. health authorities. Nor did the CDC explain how the case came to their attention. However, Cooksey said neither he nor his CDC laboratory was the source of his son-in-law's TB.

Speaker is now under quarantine at a hospital in Denver. He is the first infected person to be quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963.

Some travelers who flew on the same planes with Speaker angrily accused him of selfishly putting hundreds of 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 for TB. "That is an outrageous number of people that he was very reckless with their health. It's not fair. It's selfish."

Speaker said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 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.

On its Web site, U.S. broadcaster ABC said "Good Morning America" planned to air an interview Friday morning in which Speaker says he has a tape recording of a meeting with health officials that he claims will confirm his view that it was all right to travel in his condition. He also asks for forgiveness from other passengers, ABC said.

Despite warnings from U.S. health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment, fearing he would not survive if he did not reach the U.S., he said. He said he tried to sneak home by way of Canada instead of flying directly into the U.S.

He was quarantined May 25, a day after he was allowed to pass through the border crossing at Champlain, New York, along the Canadian border.

The inspector ran Speaker's passport through a computer, and a warning - including instructions to hold the traveler, don 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 Homeland Security Department is investigating.

"The border agent who questioned that person is at present performing administrative duties," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, adding those duties do not include checking people at the land border crossing.

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.

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.

Dr. Charles Daley, chief of the hospital's infectious-disease division, said he is optimistic Speaker can be cured because he is believed to be in the early stages of the disease.

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

"By conventional methods that we traditionally use in the public health arena ... he would be considered low infectivity at this point in time," she said. "He is not coughing, he is healthy, he does not have a fever."

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 (euro185,832) and $350,000 (euro260,165), she said.

He will be kept in a special unit with a ventilation system to prevent the escape of germs. "He may not leave that room much for several weeks," hospital spokesman William Allstetter said.

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 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."

In a brief telephone interview with the AP, Cooksey said he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.

"I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically," Cooksey said. "Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel."

Speaker's father, Ted, told WSB-TV: "The way he's been shown and spoken about on TV, it's like a terrorist traveling around the world escaping authorities. It's blown out of proportion immensely."

Health officials in North America and Europe are now trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on his 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 TB.

"There are a number of cases that say a person who negligently transmits an infectious disease could be held liable," said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University. "So long as he knew it was infectious, and knew about the appropriate behavior but failed to comply, he could be held liable."

Speaker told the Atlanta newspaper that he was not 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.