TB Andy Goes Home

So much for those "many months" of quarantine, huh? This story gets more strange every day.

The tuberculosis patient who created an international health scare when he flew to Europe for his wedding was released from a hospital Thursday after successfully completing inpatient treatment, officials said.

Andrew Speaker, an Atlanta attorney who had a multidrug-resistant strain of TB, underwent surgery on July 17 to remove a diseased portion of his right lung.

The doctors who treated him at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver don't consider him to be completely cured, but the lung operation and antibiotic treatments "have eliminated any detectable evidence of infection," the hospital said.

Speaker will still need to continue antibiotic treatment for about two years.

Hospital spokesman William Allstetter said Thursday that Speaker had left Denver in an air ambulance and returned to Georgia to recuperate. He would not specify where except to say that Speaker was not in a hospital.

"He arrived there safely and he is happy to be home," Allstetter said.

Maybe now we can all focus on preventing incidents like this in the future.