Thursday, July 12, 2007

Canadian passengers sue U.S. TB traveler

From Reuters:
Passengers who were aboard a flight with a U.S. tuberculosis patient in May launched nine civil lawsuits against him on Thursday, claiming that he knowingly exposed them to the disease.

Andrew Speaker, an American lawyer, sparked international health alarms after he flew around Europe and to Canada with what was then believed to be a deadly form of tuberculosis, known as XDR TB.

Speaker was recently found not to have had XDR TB but an equally contagious form of the disease, known as MDR, or multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. MDR is easier to treat than XDR, or extensively drug-resistant TB

The suit was launched by seven Canadian passengers and two Czech women who were on the Czech Airlines flight with Speaker from Prague to Montreal, their lawyer, Anlac Nguyen, said.

The suits are worth a total of C$1.37 million ($1.3 million), he said. ...more

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