TB patient sued for $1.3 million

[El Supremo]

Source: The Denver Post/AP

Montreal - Nine people filed a $1.3 million lawsuit today against the globe-trotting tuberculosis patient for possibly exposing them to the disease on a commercial flight from Prague to Montreal.

Montreal lawyer Anlac Nguyen filed the motion in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of seven Canadians and two natives of the Czech Republic. Eight were passengers on the flight with Andrew Speaker, and the ninth is a brother and roommate of one of the passengers.

Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta personal-injury attorney, was in Europe when he learned tests showed he had an extremely drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis.

Despite warnings from health officials not to board another international flight, Speaker took a Czech Airlines jetliner to Montreal in early May as part of his return trip home. He subsequently became the first American quarantined by the federal government since 1963 and is currently undergoing treatment under isolation at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.


Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6359626

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Does he deserve this? I don't think so.

[pnwmom]

1. Did he at least wear a mask on the plane? I don't think so.

[Mojorabbit]

2. I disagree

He thought he had the worst kind of tb and was told not to travel and he could have exposed a whole planeload of people. I don't know about the 1.3 million but he deserves something.

[Fresh_Start]

3. Should a personal injury lawyer with CDC FIL know better

than to expose 100's of people to TB?

[phusion]

4. I don't think this will stand in court...

Sue for what? There was no harm done to these people. They wouldn't have known about it unless the media had picked up the story.

I'm not defending this guy, but I just don't think that this case has a chance in court.

[Sgent]

5. 1 person has TB

unknown as of now whether he caught it from Speaker. Everyone was required to undergo skin testing, many probably a course of antibiotics.

IMHO the damages to those w/o TB is at most $1000 each (and that's stretching it), but they are real.

[phusion]

6. ahh I did not realize that...

Thank you. n/t

[Warpy]

8. The antibiotics are given only if the skin test is positive.

The skin test is positive only if they were infected.

The skin test doesn't determine if they were infected by Speaker, only that they have been infected at some time in their lives.

Positive skin tests are followed up with chest Xrays and sputum cytology to determine if the person has active disease, as well as with antibiotics.

[Warpy]

7. If he flew back AFTER learning he had active, resistant TB

and didn't wear a mask on that plane, you bet your ass he does.

Fortunately for everyone he exposed, it appears he doesn't have the multidrug resistant strain. Still, anyone with active TB has to be masked in public. We do that in hospitals every time we move a TB patient.

If he was not, it's wilfull endangerment.

Still, Nguyen would have to prove that he had TB as a result of that exposure.

[uppityperson]

9. There was an update that he did NOT have this really bad form. Link.....

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=76231
According to Andrew Speaker, who was wrongly diagnosed with a dangerous form of tuberculosis (TB), he was tricked into isolation. Speaker, a lawyer, told the Associated Press (AP) that he was not aware of having a serious illness when he traveled to Greece to a wedding in May, 2007. For the last four weeks Speaker has been in isolation in Colorado.

Speaker told AP that the authorities asked him to visit a hospital in New York for further tests after his trip to Greece. He says he did just that, then there were guards standing outside his door. Speaker claims the authorities tried to trick him when it was not necessary. Speaker told the AP he is worried about people coming after him.

The last time an American was placed in quarantine in the USA was in 1963.

The CDC wrongly diagnosed speaker with a very dangerous form of TB, a form that is resistant to most drugs. Further tests have clearly shown that he has a milder form which can be treated with a wider range of antibiotics....more

[bmbmd]

10. And you can bet your arse

that this wiggler will be suing the CDC.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Frivolous lawsuit

None of these people have contracted TB, and the sequence that supposedly banned him from traveling is dubious, at best. The best part: he doesn't even have the worst resistant TB!

These people are looking to cash in on taking an airplane trip. A ridiculous lawsuit, and I'm gonna laugh my ass off when it's thrown out of court. There was no tort, period.

[Eurobabe]

12. He deserves something.

Maybe a swift kick in the ass! Just another selfish douche bag if you ask me. I don't care whether it has been determined now that he has a milder form of TB or not. He shouldn't have traveled, putting others in danger.