Border inspector 'ignored TB-patient alert'

A globetrotting Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed back into the US by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear, officials said.

The unidentified inspector, who has been removed from border duty, explained that he was no doctor but that the infected man seemed perfectly healthy and that he thought the warning was merely “discretionary”, officials briefed on the case said.

The patient was identified as Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old personal injury lawyer who returned last week from his wedding and honeymoon trip through Italy, the Greek islands and other spots in Europe. His father-in-law, Robert Cooksey, is a microbiologist with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention whose speciality is TB and other bacteria.

Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law to US health authorities. Nor did the CDC explain how the case came to their attention. But Cooksey said neither he nor his CDC laboratory was the source of his son-in-law’s TB.

Speaker is now under quarantine at a hospital in Denver, Colorado. He is the first infected person to be quarantined by the US government since 1963.

Some travellers 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.”

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.

Despite warnings from US health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment, fearing he would not survive if he did not reach the US, he said. He said he tried to sneak home by way of Canada instead of flying directly into the US.

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

The inspector ran Speaker’s passport through a computer and a warning - including instructions to hold the traveller, don a protective mask in dealing with him, and telephone health authorities – popped up, officials said.

About a minute later, Speaker was instead cleared to continue on his journey, according to officials.

The US Homeland Security Department is investigating.

“The border agent who questioned that person is at present performing administrative duties,” said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.

Colleen Kelley, president of the union that represents customs and border agents, would not comment on the specifics of the case, but said “public health issues were not receiving adequate attention and training” within the agency.