 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Hospital spokeswoman Geri Reinardy said Saturday that Speaker was taking antibiotics to battle a tennis-ball-size infection in his lung. Doctors said his treatment could include surgery to remove the infected tissue if the drugs don't work.
Speaker has said that he, his doctors and CDC officials all knew he had been diagnosed with XDR-TB before he left for the trip. He said he was told he wasn't infectious and did not pose a health risk to others. Health officials said they'd prefer he didn't fly, but no one ordered him not to, he said.
He said his father, also a lawyer, taped that meeting, the Associated Press reported.
Text Continues Below
"My father said, 'OK, now are you saying, prefer not to go on the trip because he's a risk to anybody, or are you simply saying that to cover yourself?' And they said, 'We have to tell you that to cover ourself, but he's not a risk,'" Speaker said according to the AP report.
Public health officials' earlier comments appeared to refute that.
Dr. Steven Katkowsky, director of the Fulton County (Georgia) Department of Health and Wellness, said Speaker had been told in early May not to travel to Europe.
"He was told traveling is against medical advice," agreed Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine. Once Speaker was in Europe, "he was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back," Cetron added.
Speaker said the CDC called him in Rome, informed him he had the drug-resistant form of TB and told him to cancel his commercial flight plans. But the CDC didn't offer him any help, he said, other than to meet with health officials in Italy.
At a press briefing Friday afternoon, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC, said "extensively drug-resistant" TB grows very slowly and patients aren't contagious until symptoms begin to show.
Speaker's new wife, Sarah, has tested negative for the respiratory disease.
After flying to Paris May 12, Speaker continued on to Prague, then took a return flight aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 to Montreal on May 24, before driving back into the United States at Champlain, N.Y.
More information
For more information on extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2
|
.gif)
