It's a little self-serving, but that's to be expected. The interview is quite good. I wish politicians and celebrities routinely got asked to-the-point questions like the reporter asks in this interview, instead of making us sort through proctosculations:
Andrew Speaker, the 31-year-old personal injury lawyer from Atlanta, wants the world to know he’s being unfairly criticized for eluding health and security officials and putting planeloads of people at risk when he flew to Europe to get married last month-despite being told he carried an often deadly, drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. No longer America’s top medical fugitive, Speaker, who is now being treated under guard in a Denver hospital, is the first person to be quarantined by the federal government since 1963. On Friday evening, he spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Eve Conant.
Have a read and tell me what you think of the interview and his and the CDC's actions.
Posted by floridacracker at June 2, 2007 10:22 AMI had to laugh cynically at this whole story, Donnah.
The only time I was ever 'called into the office' as a nurse was when I got really pissed at a TB patient. The guy allowed himself to be admitted tot he regular floor, when he knew all along he was TB positive, and should have had a negative pressure room. When I grabbed a CNA, and went into his room(without any real transfer papers) and gathered up his crap, threw it on his bed and wheeled his behind into his new quarters.
I ripped him up and down both sides all the way there.
This guy just seems to be the type that would throw his wife and kids out of a lifeboat. He reminds me of John Edwards.
Posted by: csason at June 2, 2007 01:18 PMI think the CDC has some 'splaining to do... "Loooooouuuuuuuuuuccccceeeeeyyy"
The time line of the whole thing indicates footdragging on the CDC's part... and a willfull ignorance of a communicative disease by the carrier.
It also wouldn't bother me a lot if they fired outright the idiot BP agaent that let him in without following the flag alert that was staring him in the face when he ran the guy's passport.
Hard to tell. Good questions, but most of his answers were vague. He thought this, maybe they said that, who knows? I have a hard time believing there was all this grayness involving a case of TB.
Posted by: Chris at June 2, 2007 01:23 PMMy mom has told me a story several times about when her dad was in the pen during the early 1900's.
Any term in prison could be a death sentence for many reasons, but TB was an epidemic inside and outside of the walls then.
To avoid chain-gang work Grandaddy would let his TB cellmate cough and spit into his cup to show the guard he had an issue of blood.
MG, what was the world's reaction to just the possibility of bird flu? and this guy flies trans- atlantic with a drug resistant form of the "consumption"
unbelievable.
It is a total shock to most people who show up positive, even though it may be treatable.
It is a bitch to be in isolation. I can't believe his wife is ignoring just the basic precautions, and
he doesn't give a damn.
Whomever enters a negative pressure room does so in
pretty tight barriers..especially if contact is to be expected.
I just love this guy. Travels when he knows he isn't supposed; goes through Canada to get back in the country, and is now implicitly blaming Bush and setting up the lawsuit. What a dirtbag. Of course, he surely knows that by blaming Bush the media will treat him like a hero.
Posted by: Brian at June 10, 2007 12:05 AM