What was TB guy thinking?

ATLANTA — The man who was allowed back into the U.S. with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis has been identified as Andrew Speaker, 31, a personal-injury lawyer who returned last week from his wedding and honeymoon trip through Italy, the Greek isles and other spots in Europe.

Speaker's new father-in-law, Robert Cooksey, is a microbiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whose specialty is TB and other bacteria.

The disclosure that Speaker is a lawyer — and specifically a personal-injury lawyer — outraged many people. Some travelers who flew on the same planes with Speaker angrily accused him of selfishly putting hundreds of people's lives in danger.

"It's still very scary," said Laney Wiggins, 21, one of more than two dozen University of South Carolina-Aiken students who are getting skin tests for TB. "That is an outrageous number of people that he was very reckless with their health. It's not fair. It's selfish."

Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to federal health authorities. Nor did the CDC explain how the case came to its attention. However, Cooksey said neither he nor his CDC laboratory was the source of his son-in-law's TB.

Speaker is under quarantine at a hospital in Denver. He is the first infected person to be quarantined by the U.S. government since 1963.

Speaker said in a newspaper interview that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he did not find out until he was already in Rome that it was an "extensively drug-resistant" strain considered especially dangerous. The term means the bacterium is resistant to two classes of first-line drugs and two classes of second-line drugs.

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. He said he tried to sneak home by way of Canada instead of flying directly into the U.S.

He was quarantined May 25, a day after he was allowed to pass through the border crossing at Champlain, N.Y., along the Canadian border.

On Thursday, a tan and healthy-looking Speaker was flown from Atlanta to Denver, accompanied by his wife, Sarah, and federal marshals. Doctors at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center planned to isolate him and treat him with oral and intravenous antibiotics.

Dr. Charles Daley, chief of the hospital's infectious-disease division, said he is optimistic Speaker can be cured.

Dr. Gwen Huitt of National Jewish described Speaker as "a young, healthy individual" who is "doing extremely well."

Doctors hope to determine where he contracted the disease, which has been found around the world and exists in pockets in Russia and Asia.

Speaker's tuberculosis was discovered when he had a chest X-ray in January for a rib injury, Huitt said.

Speaker will be kept in a special unit with a ventilation system to prevent the escape of germs. "He may not leave that room much for several weeks," hospital spokesman William Allstetter said.

Speaker's father-in-law has worked at the CDC for 32 years and is in the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, where he works with TB and other organisms.

"As part of my job, I am regularly tested for TB. I do not have TB, nor have I ever had TB," he said in a statement. "My son-in-law's TB did not originate from myself or the CDC's labs, which operate under the highest levels of biosecurity."

CDC officials earlier this week said the genetic fingerprint of the bacteria infecting Speaker did not match any in its library of TB samples.

In a brief telephone interview, Cooksey said he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.

"I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically," Cooksey said.

According to a biography posted on a Web site connected with Speaker's law firm, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in finance, and then attended the University of Georgia's law school. He is in private practice with his father, Ted Speaker.

Speaker's father told WSB-TV: "The way he's been shown and spoken about on TV, it's like a terrorist traveling around the world escaping authorities. It's blown out of proportion immensely."

Health officials in North America and Europe are trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on his two trans-Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe.

However, other passengers are not considered at high risk of infection because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in Speaker was low, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.

Health-law experts said Speaker could be sued if others contract TB.

"There are a number of cases that say a person who negligently transmits an infectious disease could be held liable," said Lawrence Gostin, a public-health-law expert at Georgetown University. "So long as he knew it was infectious, and knew about the appropriate behavior but failed to comply, he could be held liable."

Speaker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper.

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.