Greg Bluestein of Associated Press reports that Andrew Speaker’s attorneys were back in court trying to revive his lawsuit against the CDC for outing him in 2007. Speaker became famous or infamous as the man who was supposedly told he had a very virulent (and contagious) form of tuberculosis but then took a commercial air flight anyway to go on his honeymoon. His identity was leaked to the mainstream media but attributed to anonymous sources, and it was never clear to me whether it was someone from the CDC, someone from law enforcement, or his own father-in-law who leaked his identity (some of the previous coverage here, here and here). Speaker’s lawsuit against the CDC was dismissed last year, and his lawyers are trying to get the dismissal reversed.
“Nobody knew who Mr. Speaker was until the day of the CDC press conference. Nobody knew he had TB except he and his doctors,” said attorney Craig Jones, who urged the panel to allow Speaker’s lawsuit against the agency to go forward. “After that press conference, there were TV cameras outside his hospital window.”
Read more from Associated Press.