By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - The parents and in-laws of an Atlanta lawyer legally isolated after traveling to Europe with a dangerous form of tuberculosis insisted on Monday that he was certain he was not contagious.

The parents of Andrew Speaker and his new wife, Sarah, who all attended the couple's wedding in Greece last month, also asserted that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided no help that would have allowed Speaker to avoid returning from Europe by a commercial flight.

The four appeared in a joint interview with ABC's "Good Morning America."

Speaker triggered an international health alert by defying U.S. health officials, flying to and from Europe for his wedding and honeymoon, then driving across the U.S. border in upstate New York while on a watch list for detention.

Speaker is now being held under a federal isolation order for treatment for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR TB, a strain that is resistant to most antibiotics.

His father-in-law, Dr. Robert Cooksey, a researcher in the CDC's Division of Tuberculosis, said on Monday Speaker was not contagious under health guidelines.

Tests have shown very little tuberculosis bacteria in sputum obtained from Speaker's lungs, which suggests it would be difficult, but not impossible, for him to transmit the disease.

"We were told that these induced sputum tests that he had had were negative to that point, and so by the guidelines, he was not considered infectious," Cooksey said.

Speaker's father, Ted Speaker, said a tape-recording of a pre-trip meeting with CDC officials confirms the same conclusion. "They said on tape it is not contagious ... at least three times," said the elder Speaker, adding that he plans to release the tape.

Speaker's mother, Cheryl Speaker, suggested the family's decision to proceed with the wedding in Greece and a honeymoon in Rome was supported by Cooksey's professional judgment.

"Do you think that this man, who is an expert in TB, do you think that this man, if he had thought that there was any danger whatsoever to his only child and his only grandchild, that he would have allowed this to happen?" she said.

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