Tuberculosis

Could we just talk about tuberculosis for a moment? I've been reading a lot lately about Mr. Andrew Speaker, the 31 year old lawyer from Atlanta who was diagnosed with tuberculosis in January of '07. This alone would not make news, but he was tossed into the limelight when he traveled abroad in May, infected with active XDR-TB, a very drug-resistant and dangerous form of tuberculosis.

Now, for a bit of background on my story and why this is more personal for me. In the summer of '06, I started working at a psychiatric hospital as a food service worker. All health care workers are tested for TB before they start work, and then usually once per year because of the high risk of being infected. It was then that I, the 20 year old college student was told I had a positive Mantoux skin test... I had TB. Now this did not mean that I had active TB, which is what you must have to spread it, and also to be harmed by it. I went on to be evaluated by a couple of doctors, had a chest x-ray, and was placed on Isoniazid, an antibiotic routinely used to combat latent tuberculosis. So, latent TB is when you have inactive TB. Many people live their entire lives with latent TB without it ever becoming active. Regardless, it is scary to know that at any point that TB within you could turn active and you could spread it to others. At first I was shocked, especially since I learned I most likely was infected on my college campus by an international student, but then I felt like I had a responsibility. I felt like I needed to learn as much as I could about tuberculosis, since I did not want to be responsible for passing it to others if it ever were to become active.

So, back to Mr. Speaker. How is it that between the months of January and May, that no one did any further testing or evaluations of Andrew to see if he could spread this to others or not? Why did it take almost 5 months to find out that he had a very dangerous strand of TB? Why is it, that after he was contacted in Europe and told that he had XDR-TB that he fled back to the US like a fugitive, staying away from the no-fly list? He had been living with XDR-TB since at least January, so why the immediate fear of death?

I am just in awe at the utter lack of responsibility on Andrew Speaker's part, and also on part of the CDC and his CDC employed father-in-law. At this point in the blame game, who should take more responsibility for one person's health?