DENVER -- Parts of the audiotape recorded by the family of tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker was released to the public Wednesday night.

Speaker's family said that the audiotape proves that doctors told Speaker that he wasn't contagious before his trip to Europe.

Part of the audiotape was played on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday night.

Ted Speaker (Andrew's Father): "And in Denver, where does he stay physically? At the hospital?"
Andrew Speaker: "Like, for three weeks I'm just sitting in a hospital bed?"
Dr. Eric Benning: "Now that, I don't know. But because of the fact that you actually are not contagious, there's no reason for you to be sequestered."

At another point on the tape, Benning said, "As far as we can tell, you are not a threat to anybody right now."

However, there's another part of the tape that makes it clear that nothing was absolutely certain.

Andrew Speaker: "Three weeks of that ... I'm gonna go nuts."
Dr. Benning: "Some of those questions are predicated on the assumption that your infection status does not change, which we can not guarantee either."

Ted Speaker, who is also an attorney, acknowledged to King that the audio is only a portion of the taped conversation from May 10. He said that he tapes most important conversations because he has a hearing problem from his his years of service as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War.

Speaker -- talking from his Denver hospital room -- told Larry King that he had known since an X-ray in January that he had TB and had been taking a combination of four standard drugs to treat it.

Just before a May 10 meeting at which the tape was made, he said, he had learned that the bacteria in his lung were resistant to at least two of the drugs and that he would need special treatment at the Denver hospital.

Andrew Speaker traveled to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon while infected by the extensively drug- resistant TB.

He then flew back to Montreal, Canada and slipped across the border unnoticed in New York, despite an alert to detain him.

He is now in isolation at National Jewish Medical Center in Denver.

When King asked Speaker why he continued with his travel plans after learning that his disease was drug-resistant, Speaker said, "That doesn't make me any more contagious."

His wife, Sarah, said they would not have continued those plans if they thought he was dangerous.

"We made sure in that meeting that we were not putting anyone in harm's way," she said.

King said officials from the Fulton County Health Department in Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were invited to appear on the show but declined.

Speaker also testified in Congressional hearings earlier in the day. He insisted that he was told that he was not contagious and no danger to others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that he defied doctors' orders by flying across the Atlantic twice, putting others in jeopardy. Health officials say Speaker left for Europe two days earlier than planned after he had been told he had a drug-resistant form of TB and should not travel.

But Speaker, an Atlanta attorney, was defiant in his testimony, insisting he wasn't ducking anyone.

"I didn't go running off or hide from people. It's a complete fallacy, it's a lie," Speaker said.

In Europe, Speaker disregarded instructions by the CDC to turn himself in to local health officials in Italy. Instead, he flew to Canada and then drove across the border into the U.S.

Despite a computer alert that popped up when his passport was scanned, a border agent let him through.

Speaker became the subject of the first federal quarantine order since 1963.

Congress is investigating how officials handled the situation.

Speaker remains at Denver Jewish, where he's undergoing a very aggressive and toxic regime of medications. So far, there have been few side effects.

"He looked perfectly fine and healthy. He seems to be doing fine so far," said National Jewish spokesman William Allstetter. "He's got his computer. He's got his phone. He's watching TV. He may be physically isolated from people but he seems to be in contact with a lot of people."