Something's Just Not Right

Here are some interesting developments in the TB Andy story…

In the sharpest contradiction in the accounts, Mr. Speaker said yesterday on “Good Morning America” that county health officials who met with him all but wished him bon voyage. Although they urged him not to travel to his wedding in Greece because of his tuberculosis, he recalled, they backed off under his father’s lawyerly prodding, saying, “Well, we have to say that to cover ourself, but he’s not a risk.”

Steven R. Katkowsky, director of the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness, said in an interview that the county had little power to detain Mr. Speaker, but insisted that they could not have made their warning more clear. “We told him that if you travel, you’re putting people at risk,” Dr. Katkowsky said.

His father's "lawyerly prodding"? Were threats made? How else does a lawyer prod anyone?

Meanwhile, some of the most intriguing questions still remain unresolved. Why would a well-informed person aware of medical concerns get on an airplane after receiving a diagnosis of a disease that could be fatal to others? Why would he flee from health authorities once the diagnosis became even more grave? How could the man’s father-in-law, an expert in tuberculosis at the C.D.C., accede to the trip?

Excellent questions. They definitely have some explaining to do. Oh, and did you know…

Though Mr. Speaker has said repeatedly that he believed he was not a risk to others because he was “smear negative” — that is, the bacterium did not show up in his sputum — studies show that 17 percent of tuberculosis cases are traced back to a source whose smear is negative.

He knew he had tuberculosis since January. Isn't it nice to know how intelligent he thinks he is? And what about that new father-in-law?

A federal microbiologist, the father-in-law of the man quarantined with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, will be investigated to see how he was involved in the case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

…

Robert Cooksey, whose specialty at the CDC is TB and other bacteria, and who attended his daughter's wedding, has said he provided "fatherly advice" to Speaker about traveling with the illness.

I wonder that fatherly advice was? Maybe Mr. Cooksey stood to lose money if the wedding did not progress as scheduled? He obviously wasn't concerned that his future son-in-law may be infecting everyone he came in contact with, including all those family members attending the wedding. Does that sound like someone who "specializes" in tuberculosis?

Something's just not right with this case.

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