Remember that hysteria about the jet-setting TB slip and fall shyster, Andrew Speaker back in 2007?
It got a lot of publicity. Probably because... oh... the possibility of a person flying around, after they've been told, by the CDC no to fly around, with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis isn't something that happens every day.
He's back, now, trying to sue the CDC because he feels his privacy rights were violated when they went public about the fact that he was defying their orders and had exposed hundreds, if not thousands of people to a disease that is a global health concern.
The interesting thing about this case is that usually, the media sets up a frenzy and zooms in on a private citizen, and the private citizen doesn't really have a chance to get their story out.
The part that's unusual, here, is that the private citizen did a great job of getting his story out. It's the CDC's side that's under-reported. Partially because the CDC isn't commenting on the case. In fact, other than reporting that he was jetting around despite their request that he not, they really haven't said much, publicly about this case.
In fact, it was the media that broke the identity of this spoiled, horrible little self-absorbed shyster. It wasn't the CDC. They really were trying to protect his identity, yet also balance that against their need to protect the public health.
So, what really happened?
It would appear that Mr. Speaker was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He had several tests, and some of them came up negative, but at least one indicated that he had the disease.
He was, unfortunately, also planning on travelling to Greece to marry his Fiancee in the months following his diagnosis.
A few months after his initial diagnosis, and a few months before he is scheduled to fly, he was informed that he had MDR-TB. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis. At this point, his doctors began expressing to him that he should not travel.
This is where things get very, very cloudy. It does not appear that he was ordered by the government or a law-enforcement agency that he COULD NOT travel. He was merely told by his doctors that he SHOULD NOT travel.
Apparently, at least he and his father continued to ask questions such as, "Am I contagious?" and "Why are you saying we should not travel?" and "Is this because of some real risk, or are you just covering your butts?" (Not actual quotes. Just imagined quotes based on what I understand of the story.)
It would appear that they had already made plans for Mr. Speaker's wedding in Greece and were very, very resistant to following the doctor's request that they not travel.
There is zero doubt: the doctors were resolute throughout that Mr. Speaker should not travel.
However, the Speakers assert that they were told repeatedly that Shyster-meister Supreme, Andrew Speaker, was not contagious.
So, in asshat move #1, they decided to ingore the doctor's requests.
In fact, proving that the shyster never falls very far from the scheize, Speaker's father hid a tape recorder which they claim has a doctor saying something to the effect of, "we don't want you to travel... it's not because you're contagious, we're just covering ourselves".
Trouble is, that's just one statement, by one doctor. It hardly means that was the overall gist of what was being communicated. In fact, what was being communicated appears to have been substatial enough that Sheister Senior was going to record a conversation to try and win a game of "gotcha".
It appears at this time that the public health officials were attempting to draft documents making it explicit that they were demanding that Speaker NOT TRAVEL.
They assert that they were going to hand-deliver this letter to him.
Unfortunately, they couldn't reach him. He had changed his flight plans to travel to Greece earlier than had been planned.
Now, did he do this knowing they were going to unambiguously demand that he stay in the country? There's not, as far as I know, a way to know this from the public record. Suffice to say, he changed his travel plans at the last moment which coincided with the precise time-frame when public health officials were trying to hand-deliver a request to him NOT TO TRAVEL.
Coincidence? Maybe. However, personally, I'm skeptical.
While in Europe for his vacation, a test result comes back that indicates that Speaker may actually have XDR-TB, which is even worse than MDR-TB.
They called him in Europe. Instructed him not to fly on commercial aircraft and turn himself in to Italian health officials.
At this point, Speaker begins outright defying all requests from the CDC. He flies travels via public conveyance through several European countries, then enters the US, from Canada, by car.
He claims that he couldn't afford a hundred grand or more for a private jet to get him back to the states. He claims that the CDC said they would not pay to transport him back home.
When he went to enter the US, the border agents got a notice on their computer screen that he was a public health risk, and they deliberately ignored the notice let him into the country anyway. Literally, they had identified him as THE TB PATIENT, and decided they didn't need to do anything about it and let him in anyway. (And these asshats are supposed to protect us from terrorists? They won't even bother to protect us from tuberculoid attorneys!)
In their defense, they claimed that he "looked healthy".
Now, it turns out that Speaker didn't have XDR, "just" MDR. Personally, I think that's neither here nor there.
So, why is it that, even though it turns out that he probably wasn't contagious, that I still think he's a disgusting example of humanity?
1. If somebody told you that you have a disease that is exceptionally difficult to cure (and in the majority of cases, impossible to cure), and that you should report to health authorities, would you then expose yourself to hundreds of people on public transit?
I'm glad it turned out that this guy doesn't have XDR-TB. I'm glad his wife doesn't have it. Thing is, if there were even a CHANCE that I might have something like this, I would never do something that would endanger the public, against the advice of public health officials.
That's the main beef, here. Yeah, the diagnosis was incorrect. But it doesn't take much to see that these tests, in isolation, aren't that reliable. Near as I can figure, Speaker had as many tests tell him he DIDN'T have TB as he had tests that said he DID. This doesn't appear to be a 100% accurate and reliable science.
However, any decent human being would not have risked infecting others. Had he complied with their requests, continued testing would have shown he could travel. Instead, he took matters into his own hands.
He basically decided that he was going to do what he wanted to do to benefit himself. If he killed others, well, then that was just too bad for them.
2. How many times did we have to hear that he probably contracted TB while working with poor people in Vietnam? Gosh, the guy was practically mother theresa. How could we say he was a very, very bad man. Trouble is, that's a bit of an exaggeration. He went over there briefly as part of a Rotary club project. This isn't a guy who lived in a leper colony for 3 years as a man of medicine and compassion. This is a guy who went there for 5 weeks.
Noble? Sure. Good thing to do? Yep. A crappy deal that he may have contracted TB there? Sure was.
Get out of jail-free card for willingly throwing as many other people under the bus as you need to in order to save your own ass? Not in a million years.
This is just an attempt to wrap himself in a cloak of decency to try and mitigate the fact that he basically acted no better than a murderer during one highly publicized part of his life.
3. On his law firm's web-site, Mr. Speaker proudly points out that he attended the Naval Academy. What he omits is that he didn't graduate. I have a special disdain for people who want the kudos associated with military service, but who can't be bothered with... oh... actually performing any military service. What this guy got was a year or two of free education at taxpayer expense, after which he decided that either the school was too hard, or that he was too good to serve his country and he walked. Or maybe he was rendered unfit for military service due to some physical, psychological, or emotional problem.
No harm, no foul. The Navy doesn't want him, either. However, putting this as some sort of achievement on his resume just highlights how craven he is to try and strap-hang on the sacrifices of actual servicemembers. He didn't SERVE your country. He took advantage of a good deal, then walked when he would have had to give something back.
Like I said, no harm, no foul, but if this is an example of things he's proud of, frankly, he either has a distorted sense of pride, or he's never actually accomplished something he can be proud of.
4. After trotting around Europe following his wedding in Greece, Scummy McSleasemeister then cried poor that he couldn't afford the cost of a charter plane to get himself home.
Now, six figures is a heck of a sum of money to pay. However, I'm left to wonder two things:
First, what kind of personal injury attorney is he? Personal injury attorneys should make money. Where is his?
Second, sorry dude... wedding in greece, honeymoon in Europe? I'm not buying the "I just can't afford it" argument. In fact, in later interviews, Speaker did say something to the effect of, he could have probably found a way to come up with the money, but it would have been exceptionally difficult.
Understandable. That's a lot of money. However, what does it say about the guy that money for a wedding in Greece is perfectly okay in his value system, but money to make sure he doesn't murder a few dozen people is entirely too inconvenient?
And what about his shyster dad? Are they both crying poor? Practice of the law isn't particularly noted for low salaries. Especially when one abandons all human decency to become a slip-and-fall attorney.
5. At some point, clearly, the wedding in Greece became more important than listening to the CDC.
I can't say the exact time when it happened. However, sometime between being diagnosed with garden variety TB and the time when the CDC was trying to hand-deliver a letter, the CDC stopped merely suggesting that this guy not-travel and was clearly trying to tell him that he REALLY SHOULD NOT travel.
Speaker's argument basically boils down to: Well, they suggested it, but at no time did they tackle me and throw me in a prison.
And until they did something that legally prevented him from travelling, this guy was going to Greece. In fact, it appears that he was deliberately changing his travel plans to keep them from contacting him to keep him from going.
Again, the heart of the real problem here: he was in it for himself. Period. Didn't care what the doctors said.
He seems to think it is a defense that he didn't get quarantined by the fed. (He was, upon his return.)
Basically, he's saying that basic human decency wasn't a good enough reason.
He's saying that the way the world should work is that doctors shouldn't say things like, "don't travel". That's not enough. If they were serious, they need to do something other than say, "don't travel".
What does he think they should do? Put a gun to your head, say, "don't even f***ing move" and call in a SWAT team?
In any event, this jerk is doing exactly what you'd expect some third-rate shyster slip and fall scumbag to do. He's suing the CDC.
So, yeah, there's more to this story. There almost always is. However, none of it seems to erase the main problem that folks have with this guy: when he thought he could benefit himself at the cost of potentially killing dozens of other innocent people, he helped himself.
It would be as if somebody said, "Hey man, that machine gun you've got. It's not a toy. We think it may have live ammo in it".
Then, instead of putting the machine gun down, I say, "Well, screw it. I'll just open fire on this bunch of pre-schoolers playing soccer".
I mean, yeah, if it turns out afterwards that the machine gun was, indeed, not loaded, that's a good thing.
But it sure as hell doesn't excuse me for thinking it was okay to kill a bunch of innocent people.
Lucky for all of us that the threat wasn't as bad as the CDC thought at the time. However that doesn't excuse this guy's behavior. Are we supposed to be angry that the CDC acted in a very conservative fashion to try and ensure that this guy didn't needlessly infect untold numbers of people? I mean, yeah, they errored on the side of caution. Go figure. Avoiding the possibility of creating a mountain of corpses will make some people error on the side of caution.
I consider it a supreme injustice that this guy should enjoy any kind of life at all.
He displays the ugliest of the ugliness of human spirit and sank to depths no decent human being would ever sink to.
He represents all that is evil and wrong in humanity.
He is, simply put, a very, very bad person. No amount of PR spin will ever change that.
This is a timeline by NPR of the events of Mr. Speaker's scumminess:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/tb/
This is an article about his current difficulty in practicing the law. He thinks it's because people are afraid of TB. I'd be more afraid that he'd throw my ass under the bus the first second he thought it would benefit him. that's sorta the way it goes: people don't want to do business with people who would kill you before they'd inconvenience themselves.
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sfb/lawArticleSFB.jsp?id=1189587766087
This one doesn't even fall into the news category. But if you want to read about what a 3rd rate lawyer does, after essentially attempting to manslaughter a few dozen people, when he has the opportunity to sue:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/04/30/2009-04-30_andrew_speaker_quarantined_for_tuberculosis.html
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