2007 Border Worker Disregarded TB Warning
by G BLUESTEIN and D BARRETT Assoc'ed Press
Globe-trotting lawyer with TB was allowed back into the US by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear.
The inspector, who has been removed from border duty, said he was no doctor but that the infected man seemed perfectly healthy, and he thought the warning was merely "discretionary" . . .
Andrew Speaker, 31-y-o personal injury lawyer, returned last week from his honeymoon trip abroad.
His new father-in-law, Robert C Cooksey, a CDC microbiologist whose specialty is TB and other bacteria, wouldn't comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to fed health authorities, but said neither he nor his CDC lab was the source.
Speaker, now quarantined, is the first infected person the US quarantined since 1963 . . .
Travelers accused him of selfishly putting lives in danger-
Speaker did indeed, have a dangerous, drug-resistant strain