Hello, I’m Paul Franks and I’ve written a conspiracy-thriller called ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, based upon my four years researching HIV/AIDS. In this original podcast series, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the story behind the story, the four-year research and writing process from inspiration to publication, and all points in between.

By April 2021, I was convinced that CMV ticked all the boxes as far as being a cause of AIDS was concerned. I was puzzled that no-one else seemed to have reached the same conclusion. In fact, one person had, and in Episode Twenty-Five of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘Gottlieb’, I will tell you about the paper which confirmed my hypothesis that CMV could be the cause of AIDS and about the person who wrote it. It was the very same person credited with breaking the AIDS story to the world on 5th June, 1981. Although Dr Michael Gottlieb is most famous for the 5th June, 1981, MMWR, ‘Pneumocystis Pneumonia --- Los Angeles’, more accurately ‘Pneumocystis Pneumonia and CMV --- Los Angeles’, it is actually a paper he published in December 1981, ‘Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and mucosal candidiasis in previously healthy homosexual men: evidence of a new acquired cellular immunodeficiency’, that is worthy of greater fame. The absence of CMV from the title is even more inexcusable this time as Gottlieb clearly states that CMV is one of the root causes of this ‘new acquired cellular immunodeficiency’. Despite his later protestations that he had ‘rushed to judgement’ about CMV’s role in AIDS, stating that ‘because (CMV) was cultured from multiple sites, I proposed that it might be causal. This proved to be an error. CMV had been reactivated because of the immune deficiency,’ Randy Shilts wrote in ‘And The Band Played On’p94/95 that Gottlieb spent much of the summer of 1981 ‘methodically putting together a paper on cases of PCP pneumonia for the New England Journal of Medicine. Of course it is true that CMV reactivates but it also causes immunosuppression. The article, the lfirst full treatment of gay pneumonia in a scientific journal’, was published in December 1981 and is one of the most accurate explanations of the cause of AIDS ever written.

This is the summary of the abstract:

‘Four previously healthy - not really - homosexual men contracted Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, extensive mucosal candidiasis, and multiple viral infections. In three of the patients these infections followed prolonged fevers of unknown origin. In all four cytomegalovirus was recovered from secretions. Kaposi's sarcoma developed in one patient eight months after he presented with esophageal candidiasis. The inversion of the T/ helper to suppressor/cytotoxic ratio suggested that cytomegalovirus infection was an important factor in the pathogenesis of the immunodeficient state. A high level of exposure of sexually active male homosexuals to cytomegalovirus-infected secretions may account for the occurrence of this immune deficiency.’

Later in the paper Gottlieb states that these patients’ clinical courses resembled those of the renal-transplant patients I looked at in Episodes Twenty-One-Twenty-Three. He cites the paper which showed that 90%+ of sexually active gay males were CMV-positive and the Carney paper of June 1st 1981 which detailed CMV’s impact on T-cells and T-cell ratios. ‘It is likely that sexually active, young homosexual men, are frequently reinfected (by CMV) through frequent exposure to semen and urine of sexual partners.’ Such frequent reinfection before recovery from previous infections, could conceivably lead to overwhelming chronic infection and KS. ‘CMV is highly suspect.’

Unfortunately, Gottlieb, his career having stalled, was swayed by the snowball effect generated by Don Francis and his retrovirus cause of AIDS hypothesis. Gottlieb gained fame, or notoriety, as Rock Hudson’s doctor and also as the escort to Elizabeth Taylor at many AIDS fund raising events. His cameo for the House of Numbers documentary is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.

Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-Five of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-Six of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will do a deep dive into the CDC’s KSOI Task Force Case-Control study and uncover clear evidence of conspiracy and cover up.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

A reminder that ‘A Dive Into Darkness’ is available both as an ebook and paperback, with Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-dive-into-darkness-paul-franks/1145527746?ean=9781917129855

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dive-Into-Darkness-Paul-Franks-ebook/dp/B0D32DP97S

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/june_5.htm Pneumocystis Pneumonia --- Los Angeles

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Band-Played-Politics-People-Epidemic/dp/0285640194 ‘And The Band Played On’

House of Numbers – Gottlieb 5-6 mins.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cascades.substack.com