As I said other places, I don't think there is any criminal charges that can be brought and have them stick. Largely becuase at this stage in the game, his wife is about the only person he's likely to have given it to. (If I were her, I'd be asking who else he's been, if y'all will pardon the expression, swapping spit with.)

Civil law on the other hand, as a lawyer, he should know better. He might even wish he was dead before that's all finished, particularly if someone test positive who was on one of those aircraft.

Bingo. He's a selfish guy. Considering he was aware of his condition and completely disregarded the advise of the health officials - I wonder if he could be held criminally liable should anyone contract the disease dn die. Negligent Homicide?

I agree with you Ironraven, I can't think of any criminal statute he has broken at all in this. As far as I can see within the criminal statutes he has not committed any crime.

I also agree with you on part of the civil law side. Unless one of the other passengers actually gets sick and can prove causation and actual damages there is not much they can sue him for, however I think the airlines and government agencies can make a case for reimbursement of their expenses since they have suffered actual damages.

"Mental suffering" is the term of the art, isn't it?

I know it's a low probability of transmision, but I'd be doing a lot of pacing or busy work waiting for the test results if I'd been on those planes.

No one knew before he left if he was contagious or not, but they DID know he had some form of TB in January.

I am wondering if, since he's an attorney, he figured that no one could really do much to him, so he felt free to do as he pleased, right or wrong?

Speaker and his wife are saying that the CDC didn't offer to fly them home from Italy, and it would have cost them $100,000 to pay it themselves. Speaker is an attorney. His father-in-law is "a prominent researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" [ABC news] (a microbiologist). And they couldn't dig up a hundred grand? I wonder what the wedding cost?

"He is the first person infected with TB to be put in isolation by order of the U.S. government since 1963." [Sources: ABC News, washingtonpost.com] I am assuming that they've just very recently done this, as he seems to be too stupid and too uncaring to isolate himself.

But the news articles say he's "sorry" if he infected anyone. I've never heard that "sorry" ever kept anyone from getting infected with anything, or prevented anyone's death.

Sue

Yeah, probably not any criminal code with any real teeth in it that can be used on this guy, and civil would also be limited to apparent claims due to handling/investigation/testing costs for now. That could still be up to several hundred thousand dollars, and if anyone claims injury or illness from this event, even if it is only stress related, the costs will escalate.

Criminal negligence would be a stretch, only because intent would be a bit difficult to establish.

I still say his actions are reckless enough to warrant permanent disbarment, and extended isolation from everyone except a few medical staff, and he should continue to foot 100% of the bill for all this extra quarantine procedure. I would also entertain the notion of terminating his father in law's services at CDC, since he obviously knew in advance and failed to notify.

TB is a contagious disease. It doesn't matter whether he was extremely contagious at the time or not. There is always a risk of transmission, it just gets greater as time goes by if left untreated. The bottom line is he had no business travelling anywhere and he knew it.

He's actually probably very fortunate he's in isolation right now. I don't think he'd fare too well in the gen pub if certain individuals on that plane could get close enough to him.

We can all agree this person acted in irresponsible manner once he learned of the severity of his infection. What I have not heard much of is the CDC attempt to tract down the source of his infection. While speculation of his father-in-law’s seemingly suspicious connection with CDC-TB research abounds, there has been little speculation on other sources of the infection.

Based upon the apparent (at least for now) lack of transmission to others, even with persons that he has fairly close contact with, begs the question from whom did he contact this virulent strain of TB? Is there an individual or more then one out there who is unknowingly (or knowingly) spreading this strain of TB and whom else will soon be infected? Just as with other epidemiological studies of bacterial (or viral) infections, various strains have distinct genetic markers that allow tracking. Does the strain he is infected with point to any particular geographical source? The media and we may be so focused on his irresponsibility that the real danger lays in his source of infection and what is or is not being done to tract down that source.

Pete

The most likely theory on where he became infected was on a Rotary Foundation sponsored trip to Vietnam. I forget the exact timing. A year ago? XDR-TB is not uncommon in pockets of Asia. In addition, he also spent time touring a hospital there, in enclosed spaces, which would seem to be the likeliest opportunity for him to contract TB while in Vietnam. At least as of a few days ago, Mr. Speaker could not remember the name of the hospital so someone needs to look up their itinerary to track down the name of the hospital, so I don't know where that lead stands. Even if this was the source, though, it's likely that the actual person who infected him may be long gone from the hospital.

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but it seems appropriate to keep this all together.

I was just reading yesterday that Andrew Speaker will be served with a $1.3 million lawsuit shortly by 9 of his fellow airplane passengers (actually, 8 passengers and the brother of one of them). Although none of the eight have tested positive, they're suing for all the worry and anxiety he caused them. Since Mr. Speaker is a personal injury attorney, I'm sure he has a good idea what's coming down the road.

I don't bring this up just to beat up on this guy. I just think it's useful to hear some follow-up after some sensational news story and the repercussions that people face when they make certain decisions, whether it's getting on a plane with TB, getting lost in the wilderness and triggering a massive SAR operation, etc. If nothing else, it's quite common that so-called "facts" turn out to be wrong later on. Case in point...

A month or two ago, the CDC announced that Speaker doesn't actually have the most dreaded form of TB--the extensively drug-resistant (XDR) kind--but a strain that is resistant to some drugs but still susceptible to others. It baffles me how the CDC could have gotten that wrong. But when the CDC tested some of the samples taken from him when he first arrived at National Jewish Medical Center, they discovered the discrepancy. I guess some could argue that the CDC subjected Speaker to some mental anguish by telling him he had the worst possible kind of TB.

Identifying bugs isn't real easy to do. As I recall, it takes about a month to even culture tuberculosis. Then you'd have to stain it, maybe use some molecular markers or other quick method of checking the surface of the bacteria.If I had to hazard a guess, I'd assume his local County Health Agency did some sort of screening of his TB initially, hence the presumptive diagnosis of a multi-drug resistant strain.

From there, the CDC probably got involved and did a full blown ID of the strain of TB. DNA analysis and such, which again, can't be done in an hour.