Security gaps found in CDC’s ability to handle cases of pandemic illness

A congressional investigation into officials’ inability to stop a tuberculosis patient from leaving the country found significant security gaps, heightening concern about vulnerability to potential cases of pandemic flu or smallpox.\nA report on the May incident involving an Atlanta lawyer who caused an international health scare found that the Centers for Disease Control lacks a sound way to prevent someone infected with a biological agent from entering or leaving the United States.\nThe review by the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Democratic staff was to be released Monday, one day before the sixth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S.\nSince the Sept. 11 strikes, the government has focused on all types of possible threats and sought to find ways to best detect and counter biological agents.\n“How we address these gaps now will serve as a direct predictor of how well we will handle future events, especially those involving emerging, re-emerging and pandemic infectious diseases,” according to the report obtained by The Associated Press.\nThe committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., added: “If we can’t counter TB, how can we counter terrorism?”\nThe case of Andrew Speaker involved a series of notification delays and a lack of streamlined reporting systems, according to the congressional report.\nSpeaker was able to fly out from Atlanta to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon despite warnings from public health officials.\nOnce he was in Europe, the CDC determined Speaker could not be transported back to the U.S. because the agency did not have the equipment to safely do so for a flight longer than eight hours.\nThe CDC asked the Transportation Security Administration to place Speaker on its “no-fly” list so he could not re-enter the country. But there was a four-hour delay between the request and the listing.\nSpeaker got back into the U.S. through Canada, despite instructions to Customs and Border Protection officers not to allow him in. The 18-year veteran inspector who ignored the warning has retired.