U.S. waited more than a week on TB case

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mon Jun 4, 7:25 PM ET

ATLANTA - It took a week and a half for U.S. health officials to notify their counterparts in Europe that an American honeymooner was traveling there with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis, agencies involved in the case told The Associated Press.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was first told that Andrew Speaker was traveling in Europe on May 18, nearly a week after the infected patient and his fiancee flew to Europe for a wedding in Greece.

The World Health Organization and Italian health authorities say they were not notified about Speaker until May 24, the day Speaker and his wife flew back to North America. The Greek Health Ministry was not informed until May 25, officials said.

A CDC spokesman said the delay was easy to explain — it took the agency several days to pin down the patient's exact location. "We didn't know where he was," said spokesman Tom Skinner.

Speaker's TB was caught early by chance in January when he had a chest X-ray for a rib injury.

During a meeting with Fulton County health officials on May 10, Speaker said he was advised that he was not contagious or a danger to anyone. Officials told him they would prefer he didn't fly, but no one ordered him not to, he said. His father, Ted Speaker, has said that he recorded the meeting, but has not responded to requests from The Associated Press to listen to it.

Speaker and his fiancee left Atlanta on May 12 — two days earlier than scheduled — to get to Greece for their wedding. Fulton County officials said they learned he was there on May 14, when Speaker e-mailed his doctor to say he was in Greece.

County health authorities were working with their legal department to get a court order to stop Speaker from traveling when they got the news, said April Majors, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County Department of Health & Wellness.

The county didn't tell the state about Speaker's whereabouts until May 17. It isn't clear what happened in those three days, or why it took so long for the county to pass on the information. Majors did not offer an explanation.

On May 18, CDC scientist Robert Cooksey, Speaker's father-in-law, became involved when top CDC officials learned of his relationship with the patient, Skinner said. With Cooksey's help, the CDC reached Speaker in Rome on May 23, Speaker has said.

That's when he learned tests showed he had not just multidrug-resistant TB, but an extremely drug-resistant strain known as XDR. The CDC got those test results on May 22, Skinner said.

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 U.S., he said.

In the time it took word to reach European officials, Speaker had flown from Atlanta to Paris; Paris to Athens; Athens to Thira Island; Mykonos Island to Athens; and Athens to Rome.

On May 24, he and his fiancee flew to Prague and then on to Montreal.

In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," Speaker's mother-in-law said he never would have gone to Europe if he thought he was contagious.

"He would have been the first one not to go," said Betsy Cooksey, the mother of Speaker's new wife, Sarah.

International health officials said they believe the CDC notified them within a day of finding out about the case. What they were upset by was Speaker's statement that he needed to come home for lifesaving health care.

Some of the leading research in TB is being done by Italians, said Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's tuberculosis department.

"This is a developed country," Raviglione said. "I'm pretty sure they would have been able to do the right thing" and provide Speaker with the proper treatment, he said.

Doctors are hopeful Speaker's tuberculosis can be cured since it is not widespread, he is otherwise healthy and young. He is receiving treatment at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.

Speaker's strain has so far resisted at least 10 of 14 drugs available for treating TB, according to tests performed in Georgia, doctors said. Surgery to remove infected lung tissue that is about the size of a tennis ball is one option for Speaker. The infection's relatively small size increases the chances of success of any surgery.

On Monday, a hospital spokesman said that Speaker may soon be allowed brief trips outside of his hospital room if a third test of his sputum, a mixture of saliva and phlegm, is negative for TB bacteria.

Two previous tests already were negative. If the third is also negative, Speaker would be considered "relatively noncontagious," said hospital spokesman William Allstetter.

Drug-resistant TB patients who do venture outside are kept far from patients and anyone else in the community so they pose no risk of infecting others.

Associated Press Writers Colleen Slevin in Denver, Maria Cheng in London and Ariel David in Rome contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070604/ap_on_re_us/tuberculosis_infection

As the government continues the psyop to terrify America about hideous diseases, in particular an UN treatable one, (the worst kind because it's hopeless), specifically TB, the Really Deep Seeds Of Terror are being implanted in the fear section of the brain.

As we already know, the Fear Section of the brain sits next to the Common Sense section of the brain, and when it gets overblown with fright it cuts off oxygen to the Common Sense section. That's why panicked people do stupid things. It's a guarantee. Why would the government be trying to scare us into doing stupid things? Well let's read on.

By framing the title of this article from a position of higher moral ground, you already know you're being jerked off. Show me anyone in the media or in the government that has any moral ground. They don't have room to talk.

But they are shameless and will go for it anyway because it works. After reading the title of this article, the desired response from you, the public, is to recoil in annoyed irritation. You're supposed to say, "Why those lazy good for nothing gov't people! A whole week! They are failing in the duty of protecting my public health! They are letting infected oozing zombie people fly all over the place and spread their cooties to innocent people."

They have just managed to successfully implant the idea in your mind that the government has the right and the need to be involved in this. They don't. On either count. But you're already taking the bait if you're like most people, and you're already scared they're not doing enough.

The Government 1, The People 0

Next they mention the names of places you're supposed to think of as prestigious and respectable even though you've never been there yourself, nor do you know the first thing about anyone who even works there. If you're like most, you'll automatically hand over that unearned respect because you recognize the official sounding names and have been trained to sit and obey anything with an official sounding name.

Or you could be wild and refuse to give a rat's tail about the supposed status and reputation of any organization or person since that's all irrelevant. Who cares what they think? What matters is, the facts.

Now we're told that the CDC didn't even find out until a week after the "infected patient" flew to Greece. In short, it's not their fault because nobody told them.

The WHO and the Italian health authorities, (why the Italians are involved I don't know, the guy went to Greece) are saying THEY weren't informed until the 24th, the day the guy flew back to North America. And the poor Greek Health Ministry was left totally out of the loop until the guy had come and gone and was settled back in the States.

So you see, it's not the governments fault!

Well gee whiz, just who is it that's taking so long to notify all the authorities? Could it be that there was no NEED to notify anyone? Could be. Because if the guy had, say, Oozing Infectious Dripping Monkey Ebola that instantly melted people from the inside out, there would have been an urgent call to the CDC for sure. Anything that's a genuine threat to public health has protocols that doctors and health authorities are perfectly familiar with.

Let's remember the guy is not in full blown disease mode, he feels great. His doctors didn't tell him that he was a public health threat to such an extent that he shouldn't leave home. If YOU've ever left home with a cold, you knew you were contagious. So you've got no higher ground here either. They didn't tell him NOT to fly for his wedding. SO, it's safe to assume the doctors didn't feel like there was a crisis standing in front of them in a paper dress with no back. It seems obvious they planned to do a follow up, and did not intend to notify any one about any sort of presidential level health crisis. And guess what, they didn't.

How did the government manage to push it's way into this silly story? If you recall our mr bush, also entered the picture after the fact. They came in on the tail end and scooped up as much political capital as they could wring out of it. bush medlodramatically ordered a federal quarantine, and it made the papers around the world. All over one guy. Who was fine.

So Mr. Speaker casually meandered back home and made his way to what has to be the BEST hospital on earth to be quarantined in. bush's highly publicized, nonsensical political gesture was pointless but familiar as in Shades of Schiavo. The president stopped EVERY thing because ONE PERSON was sick or dying.

The political hypocrisy of these media stunts is insulting as hell. How many people are suffering in our country every minute of the day? Does the president lose any sleep over them? Hell no. This is another stunt being used to get publicity for other plans they have in mind, and to work the public into a non thinking fear froth.

The CDC then says it took 'so long' to find the guy because they didn't know where he could be. Oh dear. Did they think to call the kids parents? Well you see, you're supposed to be so scared at the idea of how hard it could be to find cootie people that when they start talking about micro chipping all humanity, you'll see some good reason for them to do it. You'll want them to do it to save you from the cootie people. That's just what they're going for. And when they decide it's time to force chips on people, you can sure they'll bring up this TB nonsense and say, "We could have found the guy in minutes. Chips will protect the public health. If you don't want one, then you're against America."