Court revives TB patient's lawsuit against CDC

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The federal appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit by an Atlanta lawyer whose misdiagnosed tuberculosis case caused an international health scare.

Enlarge photo

AP / ABC News Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker, shown here during a "Good Morning America" interview in 2007, accuses the CDC divulging private medical information during his tuberculosis scare.

More Atlanta/Fulton news »

• Storms possible Thursday night
• Monroe man shot to death
• FBI: 3rd suspect in videotaped gay beating hiding in Pennsylvania
• Reed: Atlanta budget to shrink
• Atlanta/South Fulton
• North Fulton

Last year, Andrew Speaker sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accusing the agency of invasion of privacy and saying the CDC exposed his case to create a big news story to get more funding. But a federal judge in Atlanta dismissed the suit, saying Speaker failed to provide enough evidence to allow the case to move forward.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Speaker provided "enough factual material to raise a reasonable inference, and thus a plausible claim, that the CDC was the source of the disclosures at issue," the ruling said.

Speaker said Friday he was "incredibly grateful" for the court's ruling.

"When individuals at a massive government agency, backed by nearly limitless political and financial resources, choose to come after you and your family in hopes of sensationalizing a story for their own personal gain, defending yourself is a nearly insurmountable task," he said. "They intentionally and willfully covered up what happened, what the test results really were."

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Speaker was thrust into the news shortly after the CDC, at a May 29, 2007, news conference, said a man with XDR TB, an extremely drug-resistant strain, was being held in a hospital under a rare federal isolation order. The agency noted the TB patient had recently flown on an international flight and that all of the flight's passengers were being notified.

A media storm erupted. Speaker was soon identified as the quarantined patient who had recently traveled to Greece for his wedding and to Italy on his honeymoon. He returned after he was told that preliminary tests showed he had XDR TB.

Despite the public perception of Speaker as a modern-day Typhoid Mary, tests at a Denver hospital later showed he didn't have the XDR TB that CDC cited in its press conference, but a more treatable form of drug-resistant TB.

He is seeking unspecified monetary damages and attorneys' fees.