Laboratory tests conducted at National Jewish Medical Center in Denver indicated that Andrew Speaker’s tuberculosis is treatable by some medications previously thought to be ineffective against his disease.
He is now considered to have multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis or MDR-TB, not the extensively drug resistant disease that made national headlines previously.
“These new test results are good news for Mr. Speaker; his prognosis has improved,” said Dr. Charles Daley, head of the infectious disease division at National Jewish. “Because of his newly determined drug susceptibility, we have more effective medications available to fight his disease and may be able to treat him without surgery.”
Speaker caused an international furor this spring when he flew to Greece to be married after he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. While honeymooning in Italy after being married, doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta telephoned Speaker to tell him his infection had been determined to be extremely resistant to treatment and that he should be quarantined in Italy until he could be treated.
Speaker rejected the warning and traveled with his new wife to Czechoslovakia, where they boarded a commercial aircraft to Canada. Once in Canada, they rented a car and drove across the border to New York City, where they notified authorities.
He was taken to Atlanta, then flown by private jet to Denver for treatment at National Jewish, which specializes in treating tuberculosis and other pulmonary disorders.
In a written statement read during a press conference today, Speaker expressed relief but also frustration in what he called the CDC’s actions against him.
“For the international panic that was created after my misdiagnosis and the way my case was handled, I can only hope that this news helps calm the fears of those people that were on the flights with me,” Speaker said. “In the future, I hope they realize the terribly chilling effect they (the CDC) can have when they come after someone and their family on a personal level. They can, in a few days, destroy an entire family’s reputation, ability to make a living and good name.”
Speaker is still under a public health order to stay isolated, Daley said.
Speaking by phone, Rear Admiral Mitchell Cohen, the CDC’s director for the Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases and Assistant Surgeon General, said the multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis still is a dangerous illness and that the CDC’s actions to forbid Speaker from traveling on a commercial airline would not have been any different.
“It was better to err on the side of caution to reduce exposure to other individuals,” Cohen said.
As far as Speaker’s prognosis is concerned, his MDR-TB is “standard” as far as similar cases go, Daley said.
National Jewish has treated about five other cases of MDR-TB in the past year, with a successful cure rate of about 70 percent, Daley said. That rate goes along with national averages, Cohen added.
There are about 125 diagnosed cases of MDR-TB in the U.S. a year. Chances of curing the illness in standard forms of TB around between 95 and 97 percent, Cohen said.
