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.

I realize that the previous two episodes have contained a lot of medical-science information but when you are challenging a 40 year old narrative which has established a vice like grip over the consciousness of an entire planet, that ‘HIV is the cause of AIDS’, with everything that has resulted from that, then you have to have firm medical-science foundations from which to expound your alternative hypothesis. The three papers combined are absolute proof that AIDS was no mystery, did not appear out of a clear blue sky, and that the CDC and NIH, and every other individual and institution connected to, and with, the ‘HIV causes AIDS’ conspiracy, deliberately ignored this evidence in pursuit of their own ends. Just as Dan Brown’s desire to expose the conspiracy surrounding the actual life of Jesus led to ‘The Da Vinci Code’, so my desire to expose the existence of an ‘HIV network’ and its conspiracy and cover up surrounding the fake ‘HIV causes AIDS’ narrative, led me eventually to writing the conspiracy-thriller, ‘A Dive Into Darkness.’

In previous episodes I have already shown that CMV had the opportunity and the means to be a major cause of the AIDS epidemic. In Episode Twenty-Three, ‘1970s Transplant AIDS - Part Three’, I will examine the third of three papers published in the 1970s which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that AIDS was no mystery. Never mind the content, just the title of Paper Three stunned me: ‘INFECTIOUS DISEASE SYNDROMES ATTRIBUTABLE TO CYTOMEGALOVIRUS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AMONG RENAL TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS’. I saw that this title, if amended slightly, could just as easily fit those early AIDS cases: ‘Infectious disease syndromes attributable to cytomegalovirus and their significance among ‘Fast Lane’ homosexuals / IVDUS frequenting shooting galleries / hemophiliacs using Factor 8.’

Just like Papers One and Two, Paper Three is too detailed to explore totally in a single episode, and I shall stick to a big picture overview. The abstract begins: ‘Because of the ubiquity of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection among renal transplant patients, the correlation between CMV isolation and clinical events is often difficult.’

Exactly the same argument was put forward about CMV and AIDS cases in the early 1980s by the CDC’s James Curran and others and used as an excuse to look for alternative explanations for the syndrome.

‘In this prospective study, clinical CMV disease was diagnosed in 26 of 68 patients (38%) that received transplants between 1974 and 1976. All CMV syndromes began 1 to 4 months post-transplant, persisting up to 23 weeks thereafter (mean duration of symptoms was 19 days). Although CMV was observed in some instances to cause only prolonged fever (10 patients) or hepatitis (4 patients), its most important effects were pneumonia (9 patients) and profound leukopenia (8 patients). Three patterns of pneumonia were observed: bilateral interstitial pneumonia (3 patients), unilateral focal consolidation (1 patient) (both attributable to CMV alone), and diffuse bilateral pneumonia attributable to CMV and superinfecting microorganisms (5 patients). These last patients had CMV-induced leukopenia of >1 week's duration at onset of superinfection, and all died. The 4 patients without leukopenia did not develop superinfection, and all survived. Two other renal transplant recipients died of infection during this period, both with CMV, leukopenia, and Listeria monocytogenes sepsis. The major infectious disease importance of CMV appears to be its effects on the respiratory tract and systemic host defense in predisposing to fatal superinfection. This last sentence confirms what Papers One and Two said, and the abstract exactly describes what happened to AIDS patients in the early 1980s. Immunosuppression, CMV infection, prolonged fever, very low white blood cell counts, CMV disease, overwhelming superinfecting pathogens, pneumonia, death. One of the 5 patients had PCP pneumonia, another had Candida Albicans, a marker disease of early AIDS cases. The symptoms of these patients mirrored those outlined in the San Francisco AIDS documentary referenced below. The author notes that there is a synergistic effect of CMV combined with other pathogens including Candida Albicans. In previous episodes I noted the close association between CMV and: PCP pneumonia, KS and toxoplasmosis. The author also states that the leukopenia induced by CMV infection is a red flag for physicians and an indication to begin anti-immunosuppressive treatment immediately. He concludes that ‘future progress in limiting the infectious disease complications will require the prevention of this form of CMV infection and earlier identification and better protection of those patients afflicted by it.’

The CDC knew by Christmas 1981 that cases had significantly higher titers of antibody to CMV, had a higher frequency of isolation of cytomegalovirus (3 times more than ‘controls’) and were more likely to be infected with multiple strains of CMV. It knew that the occurrence of GRID/AIDS was found to be associated with certain aspects of lifestyle, including a greater number of male sex partners per year, exposure to feces during sex, history of syphilis and non-B hepatitis, treatment for enteric parasites, and use of various illicit substances. Shamefully, it sat on its data for 20 months when the report was finally published, by which time the early conviction of Don Francis that a retrovirus was the cause of AIDS had become the orthodox view.

Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-Two of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-Four of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will explore the paper which confirmed my hypothesis that CMV could be the cause of AIDS. A paper written by the very same person credited with breaking the AIDS story to the world on 5th June, 1981.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading. ‘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

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/infectious_disease_syndromes_attributable_to.10%20(11).pdf ‘Infectious disease syndromes attributable to cytomegalovirus and their significance among renal transplant recipients’

1985 "AIDS: An Incredible Epidemic" by San Francisco General Hospital

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6309049/ National Case-Control Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in Homosexual Men: Part 2: Laboratory Results

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.

In Episode Twenty-One, I examined a paper published in 1974 that contained great detail confirming that CMV had the means to be the cause of AIDS. I have already explained in previous episodes that CMV also had the opportunity to be the cause of AIDS as 90%+ of sexually active gay males were infected with the virus, which is a member of the herpes family of viruses and consequently never expelled from the body.

In Episode Twenty-Two ‘1970 Transplant AIDS - Part Two’, I will examine the second of three papers published in the 1970s, which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that AIDS was no mystery and no ‘out of the blue’ occurrence.

Like Paper One, Paper Two, ‘Cytomegalovirus: Clinical Virological Correlations in Renal Transplant Recipients’ was also published in 1974. The author states in the abstract that: ‘One-hundred thirty-two renal transplant recipients were systematically screened for viral infections, one-hundred ten patients showed evidence of infection with herpesviruses, and 89 patients showed laboratory evidence of infection with cytomegalovirus (CMV), uncomplicated by bacterial infections or technical complications.

Six of the 89 patients with CMV infections died within a month of viral isolation. Two paradoxical responses to CMV infections are seen in transplant patients: In the relatively immunocompetent patient, the infection is associated with a prompt antibody response to the virus, and recovery. The severely immunosuppressed patient cannot make an antibody response, may be further immunosuppressed by the viral infection, and is susceptible to sequential opportunistic infections leading to death.’

So, exactly the same as in Paper One, severely immunosuppressed patients, further immunosuppressed by the viral infection, are susceptible to sequential opportunistic infections leading to death. Exactly the same as AIDS patients in the early 1980s. The abstract cleared up one mystery. Why did the first UK ‘AIDS’ patient test negative for CMV antibodies when the autopsy revealed extensive evidence of CMV infection? The author tells us that the severely ill patient is unable to make an antibody response. This tells us that autopsy evidence is the gold standard, a subject I will return to in a later episode.

The paper is 10 pages long and far too detailed to describe in full here but what is incredibly important is the section when the author describes ‘the course of a typical lethal CMV infection’. (Don’t forget the CDC’s Don Francis said that CMV could not be the cause of AIDS as it had never killed anybody.) Notice how the symptoms mirror those of the AIDS patients mentioned in ‘And The Band Played On’ and the San Francisco AIDS documentary I referenced in the previous episode.

‘This lethal viral infection characteristically begins with spiking fever associated with mild generalized malaise. Lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia are present.

In the second week of the syndrome, new symptoms such as anorexia, nausea, vomiting, constipation, and abdominal pains appear. During this period, severe muscle wasting, peripheral edema, and lethargy are characteristic. Characteristically, it is during this period that the majority of the patients (75%) presents evidence of CMV infection in cultures of sputum, urine, bone marrow and kidney biopsy; bacterial cultures negative until the third week now become positive for members of the intestinal flora.’

The reference to bone marrow CMV infection is hugely significant – bone marrow is where the immune system’s vital T-cells are produced.

‘In the terminal phase, lasting usually 5-8 days, there is further progression of the symptomatology. The patient is now semi comatose, with rapid progression to deep coma. High fever, arterial hypotention, labored respiration, disproportionately increased heart rate, emaciation, are present. The severe leukopenia, low white blood cell count, still associated with lymphopenia, contributes to the terminal bacterial and fungal invasion. Irreversible pulmonary fluid retention represents the terminal event.

At autopsy, severe malnutrition, edema, petichiae and loss of subcutaneous fat are always present. Pneumonitis and pulmonary fluid retention are universally present, along with CMV inclusion bodies in the lungs.

In the ‘Discussion’ section, the author tells us that ‘CMV infections occur in 70-90% of renal transplant patients. The difference in immunologic responsiveness between patients who recover and those who die when infected with CMV is in harmony with findings that CMV itself is a profoundly immunosuppressive virus. The already immunosuppressed patient appears to be even more profoundly depressed by CMV infections. Such patients appear susceptible to superinfection with gram negative bacteria and other opportunistic organisms which sequentially infect and ultimately kill the patient.

At autopsy a "mixed" infection is frequently found but evidence of organisms other than CMV is usually lacking until the preterminal phase of illness when blood and sputum cultures finally became positive for bacteria.’ The author reiterates that ‘the immuno-incompetent patient may be further immunosuppressed by the virus and develop sequential opportunistic infections and die.’

What can one say except that if members of the CDC’s Task Force had read this paper and Paper One in 1981, there surely would have been no mystery about the early AIDS cases. All these men were immunodeficient, all had CMV infections and all followed similar paths to those trod by the ‘Transplant AIDS’ patients in the 1970s. The KS suffered in addition by early gay male AIDS patients in the 1980s was a result of the excessive use of Poppers at that time by a subset of male homosexuals, the highly sexually active, ‘fast lane’, gay males.

When I contacted the author to ask him if he ever connected his work with the AIDS epidemic, he replied that he knew nothing about AIDS, which tells you something of the compartmentalization afflicting medical science then, and probably now.

Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-Two of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-Three of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will conclude my examination of ‘Transplant AIDS’ cases from the 1970s.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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.penroseinquiry.org.uk/finalreport/pdf/LIT0010399.PDF First UK AIDS patient paper.

‘Solved: The 40-year mystery of the first man to die of AIDS in Britain | ITV News’ (the homosexual Paul Brand ignores the CMV aspect of the death, as he has ignored all my correspondence, but he talks about HIV testing and also interviews the charlatan Jonathan Weber)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1344157/pdf/annsurg00296-0257.pdf ‘Cytomegalovirus: Clinical Virological Correlations in Renal Transplant Recipients’

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.

In Episode Twenty, I outlined how CMV wears down the immune system using guerilla warfare tactics that leave the immune system too preoccupied and, eventually, too exhausted, to deal with both CMV and other pathogens, the so-called opportunistic infections. This immune system overload and burnout is a totally rational, evidence-driven explanation of the development and progression of AIDS, requiring no third-party intervention by a ‘virus’ called ‘HIV.’

In Episode Twenty-One, ‘1970s Transplant AIDS - Part One’, I will begin an examination of three papers published in the 1970s which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that AIDS was no mystery and no ‘out of the blue’ occurrence. If you wish to find out more about the symptoms of AIDS, then, as well as the Fauci lecture cited in the previous episode, I suggest you watch the San Francisco programme listed at the bottom of this post. This will show you how the symptoms and clinical timeline suffered by transplant patients in the 1970s were almost identical to those suffered by ‘AIDS’ patients in the early 1980s, and will tell you that AIDS, whatever the CDC said, was no inexplicable mystery requiring months and years to unravel.

The first paper ‘FORTY-DAY FEVER - An Epidemic of Cytomegalovirus Disease in a Renal Transplant Population’, was published in 1974 but was based upon events which occurred at Stanford University Hospital, California, between 1 April 1970 and 30 September 1971.

The very first sentence uncannily echoes the name given to the original CDC KSOI task force set up in June 1981: ‘A disturbing consequence of immunosuppressive therapy is the appearance of opportunistic infection in the compromised hosts.’

If people’s immune systems are damaged, then they will suffer from opportunistic infections. The next sentence gives the lie to the Task Force’s belief, led by Don Francis, that CMV hadn’t killed anybody:

‘As early as 1964 cytomegalovirus (CMV) was recognized as a contributory cause of the pneumonic disease observed in 47 percent of a group of 32 organ transplant recipients who died after immunosuppressive therapy. In four of these cases CMV was the only agent detected in the lungs.’

So, we have immunosuppression, CMV, pneumonic disease and death. What did the June 5 MMWR state about the first five GRID patients? All had PCP pneumonia, all had CMV infections, all were immunosuppressed.

The whole paper is incredibly instructive and another standout sentence comes a few paragraphs later: ‘All patients were ill with a clinically unique syndrome, manifested by the occurrence of fever 40 days after transplant, persistence of fever for four to six weeks, the development of interstitial pneumonitis, and varying degrees of hepatic and renal involvement.’ The words ‘syndrome’, ‘persistence of fever’and ‘pneumonitis’ stand out.

The paper analyses a ‘Clinical Syndrome of Disseminated CMV Disease’; if you watch the San Francisco video, you’ll see how closely the symptoms match those of the early AIDS cases.

The paper states that ‘The patients who were victims of the current CMV epidemic presented with a virtually diagnostic symptom complex. The first clinical sign was a rise in temperature, which ran as high as 41 C. The febrile episodes recurred daily and were not sustained. A non-productive cough was a very early symptom. The clinical picture was complicated to a greater or lesser degree by involvement of other organ systems.’

The next sentence is stunning: ‘Respiratory failure was the final common pathway for the five patients who died, superinfection with pathogenic organisms leading to overwhelming pneumonia.’

So, just like AIDS, we have immune deficiency, CMV, super / opportunistic infections, other pathogens, deadly pneumonia, death.

‘Four of the five patients who died showed histologic changes characteristic of viral encephalitis, and two of these had demonstrable CMV. One patient with established CMV encephalitis exhibited paranoid ideation and perseveration, with intermittent disorientation. She had alternating postural tremor in all limbs, tongue and mouth during voluntary movement which disappeared at rest. She also had muscle wasting and diffuse motor weakness.’ All these were symptoms of AIDS patients.

‘Another patient with CMV encephalitis became psychotic and in her case also loss of muscle bulk was associated with generalized weakness.’ AIDS patients all around the globe wasted away. ‘Low white blood cell numbers developed in more than half the patients during the febrile period.’

The paper concludes: ‘Cytomegalovirus infection is one of the numerous possible infective complications of immunosuppression. Of all the aspects of CMV infection in the outbreak, interstitial pneumonitis was the most feared complication, not only because of its direct effect in decreasing oxygenation, but also because it predisposes the patient to superinfection with pathogenic organisms. CMV infections have been described previously in immunosuppressed patients, but the degree of virulence we encountered was unusual. Asymptomatic CMV carriers may have high levels of antibody and excrete virus in the urine or throat secretions. We would like to suggest that a latent form of infection stemming from a common source is established and it persists in a fashion readily activated by immunosuppression. Infection may occur as a result of aspiration of airborne droplets from secretions, but transfer by blood transfusions has not been excluded. We have documented a virulent form of CMV whose hallmark is a particularly debilitating and injurious pneumonitis. Evidence has been presented to suggest that the infection may be acquired initially in the hemodialysis phase of the patient's course, and that the full devastating impact of the disease is then seen during the subsequent transplant phase.’

So, to conclude, this 1974 paper, based upon an epidemic which occurred in 1970/71, shows: immunodeficiency; acquired CMV infection; disseminated CMV disease; a unique clinical syndrome including fever; non-productive cough; muscle wasting; mental and physical disablement; overwhelming superinfection / opportunistic infections; pneumonia; death. In short, ‘Transplant AIDS’.

Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-One of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-Two of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will continue with my examination of ‘ Transplant AIDS’ cases from the 1970s.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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

1985 "AIDS: An Incredible Epidemic" by San Francisco General Hospital

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1129295/pdf/westjmed00305-0023.pdf

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.

In the previous episodes I outlined some of the reasons why I believe CMV played an important role in the complete breakdown of the immune system known as ‘AIDS’. In Episode Twenty, ‘Explaining AIDS’, I will explore in detail the mechanisms by which CMV wears down the immune system.

In his 1984 lecture, Fauci (as well as promoting a virus which turned out to be the IDAV / LAI double contaminant sent by the French to the Americans in September 1983) outlines the mistaken belief that a new virus – the virus that became known as HIV but which was called HTLV-IIIB by the Americans – was selectively infecting and damaging T4-helper cells, the conductors of the immune system orchestra. Incidentally, Fauci says they are called T-cells because they are derived from the thymus gland, but actually they originate in bone marrow and mature in the thymus. Fauci is correct when he says that in AIDS, the number of T4 helper cells goes down and the T4/T8 ratio is inverted. I already explained in a previous episode that CMV has the same impact on T4 / T8 cells when a person gets infected. Fauci, and the other proponents of the ‘HIV causes AIDS’ orthodoxy, says that the infection of one type of cell, the T4 helper cell, has a domino effect in terms of wiping out the entire immune system.

As I did not believe the ‘HIV causes AIDS’ orthodoxy, I had to find evidence which supported an alternative explanation as to how the immune system collapses in AIDS patients. I discovered it in Chapter Twelve of ‘The Stealth Virus’, specifically at the end of the chapter, with the story of ‘Edith’. In Chapter Twelve, Paul Griffiths describes how CMV establishes sanctuary sites within the body where it can replicate free from immunological attack. He also states that because CMV is always at work in a body, even if sometimes only at a low level, the immune system never switches off.

Griffiths explores these concepts in more detail in his imaginary ‘Edith’ case study at the end of the chapter. CMV hides in sanctuaries in the body that are protected against immune system attack by a series of genes encoded within the virus. Every time the herpes virus CMV reactivates, or a person becomes infected by a different CMV strain, the immune system responds but always seems to be one step behind the virus. The immune system becomes more and more angry that it cannot evict CMV from its sanctuaries like it does with other invaders like measles. Over time the immune system commits more and more resources to attacking CMV so that eventually most of a person’s T8-suppressor cells are actively searching for the sanctuaries where the CMV is hiding. Eventually, a person’s immune system commits more resources to chasing after CMV, than it does to all the other invaders combined. This can take place over decades, or in seriously ill AIDS patients, over a matter of months.

This has two effects: first, the T8-suppressor cells are angry and inflamed because they cannot kill CMV virus and end up attacking other tissues instead, leading to chronic problems in organs such as the heart. Second, because the T8-suppressor cells focus more and more on CMV, other pathogens (other viruses, bacteria, even vaccines) have, literally, licence to kill.

In early AIDS, people were being killed by CMV and opportunistic infections. CMV’s guerilla tactics do not kill T-cells directly; they distract and wear down an increasingly frustrated immune system, leaving the door wide open for other pathogens such as PCP pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, KS et al to strike. This is, in other words, the immune system overload and burnout explanation of AIDS.

Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-One of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will examine ‘Transplant AIDS’ cases from the 1970s.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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

Fauci lecture 44 mins – 50 mins.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stealth-Virus-Prof-Paul-Griffiths/dp/1477566791 The Stealth Virus

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.

In the previous episodes I outlined some of the reasons why I believe CMV played an important part of the AIDS narrative. In Episode Nineteen I examine the consequences of an event which occurred just as word was beginning to spread in Atlanta about a mysterious epidemic amongst gay males in California and New York. On May 13th, 1981, Pope John Paul II was badly injured by gunshots during an attempted assassination in St Peter’s Square. On June 30th, the New York Times reported the following:

‘THE viral illness that the Vatican says has complicated the recovery of Pope John Paul II from an assassination attempt is one of the most common and baffling of human infections. The Pontiff's doctors presume the infection was introduced into the Pope's body with one of the 10 blood transfusions he received during and immediately after emergency surgery on May 13. It is an infection for which no specific therapy exists, and recovery is up to the healing powers of nature.The illness is called cytomegalovirus infection, or CMV, and it infects the overwhelming majority of people at one time or another. Yet a medical mystery is why the virus infects so many people but makes so few sick. This characteristic distinguishes CMV from other common viral diseases, such as measles, which causes symptoms in almost every person it infects. Epidemiological studies have shown that at least 1 percent of newborns enter the world with an active cytomegalovirus infection. The incidence rises thereafter, with a peak occurring between the ages of 15 and 30. Although the incidence of CMV varies widely throughout the world, cytomegalovirus has left its ''fingerprints'' in the blood of about 80 percent of the people 40 years or older in most populations.

The symptoms and damage produced by CMV vary widely and depend on the age at which an individual is infected. Pediatricians commonly detect the virus in the urine of apparently healthy babies. However, CMV infections can cause abortion, stillbirth or death in the early days after birth from bleeding, anemia, hepatitis or brain damage. The infection can also damage the body in more subtle ways. CMV is considered an important cause of mental retardation. It can also lead to hearing and visual loss, as well as other central nervous system and developmental abnormalities that impair learning ability. Damage caused by the virus may not be detected until a child is several years old. Though most adults, as well as most infants, may become infected but escape symptoms, many infected individuals develop fever, fatigue, liver and spleen enlargement and lung inflammation. The Pope had all these symptoms, according to one of his doctors. The doctor also said that the medical team was uncertain whether the lung infection was caused by CMV because the type of inflammation seen on his chest X-rays differed from the usual pattern of a CMV pulmonary infection.

The virus is often diagnosed in patients whose immunological system has been compromised either from chronic diseases or from drugs aimed at helping to prevent rejection of transplanted kidneys and other organs. Some such patients die from CMV. The virus probably has caused infections for centuries, but the disease was recognized only in recent decades. In the late 19th century, doctors began to notice peculiar cells in the urine and organs of some children. Observed through an ordinary microscope, the cells appeared enlarged and contained dense particles called inclusion bodies. For a long time, the cell damage was attributed to a parasite. It was only in 1956, with the aid of new virological techniques, that scientists discovered that a virus, not a parasite, produced the cell changes and was responsible for the wide variety of symptoms and damage. Accordingly, it was named cytomegalovirus, from the Greek words cyto, for cell, and megalo, for large. CMV belongs to the herpes family of viruses, and when examined through an electron microsocope, it cannot be distinguished from other members of the family, such as those that cause herpes infections, chickenpox and shingles. The distinction is made by other laboratory tests.Diagnosing the virus can be difficult because individuals who have had a ''silent'' CMV infection can pass the virus in the urine for years. Since isolation of the virus alone does not conclusively link a patient's current medical problem to CMV, the diagnosis reflects a judgmental decision based on a combination of blood, urine and other tests, as well as an evaluation of the patient's clinical history.

Doctors have yet to fully determine how the infection spreads. The virus can pass from a mother's blood through the placenta to a fetus, and it occurs frequently in the cervix portion of the womb and breast milk. Still, doctors are uncertain when and how some fetuses and newborns acquire the infection. Among adults, close contact is apparently needed to spread the infection. Sometimes, CMV is spread by blood transfusions, producing an illness that resembles infectious mononucleosis. The virus can begin two to four weeks after transfusion and last a month or more. There are no tests to screen blood contaminated with CMV. The risk of acquiring CMV from blood transfusions varies geographically and is considered very low in the United States. Some American experts said privately that they were surprised by the diagnosis of CMV in the Pope because of the small probability that a healthy 61-year-old man had never had a CMV infection in the past. However, CMV was isolated from the Pope's urine, and increasing amounts of protective antibodies were detected in samples of his blood taken over several weeks, according to one of the Pontiff's doctors.’

Thank you for listening to Episode Nineteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will return to the book, ‘The Stealth Virus’, and tell you about what I believe to be a perfect description of how CMV acts in AIDS patients. Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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

Pope John Paul II shot in St Peter's Square (13 May 1981)

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/25/world/tests-show-pope-now-has-virus-lung-gets-better.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/30/science/the-doctor-world.html

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.

Before I begin this episode, I wish to mark the fact that yesterday was ‘World AIDS Day’ and I did post on ‘The Real AIDS Epidemic’ Substack page as follows:

‘It is important to say today of all days that the 'HIV causes AIDS' narrative was and remains a massive 40 year conspiracy and scam involving: the CDC; NIH; NIAID; ACTUP; Chester Beatty Laboratories in the UK; the Institut Pasteur in Paris; the WHO; UNAIDS; many governments, public heath bodies, medical / science institutions, Big Pharma, and media organizations around the planet.’

In previous episodes I have outlined the close relationship/association between CMV and 3 of the main marker diseases of early AIDS: PCP pneumonia; KS; Toxoplasmosis. Today, in Episode Eighteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘The Stealth Virus’, I will begin to outline my research into CMV. By March 2021, having read ‘And The Band Played On’ and come to the conclusion that

a) the HIV causes AIDS narrative was false

b) that CMV could have played an important part of the AIDS narrative

I began to examine CMV in great detail. After a couple of weeks research, I knew for certain that CMV had played an important part. One of the explanations of this certainty was the book ‘The Stealth Virus’ by Professor Paul Griffiths. This book told me that CMV could be transmitted by every body fluid, could be passed from mother to child in the womb, and via breast milk, infected a person for life, like the flu virus, was multi-strain so a person could be infected with different strains of the virus, and was a cause of immunodeficiency, as well as an exploiter of immunodeficiency.

There were two more aspects of CMV that really stood out for me: first, the reason why some people suffered more than others when infected by CMV was, like the flu or Covid virus, down to the amount of viral load – the ones who suffered the most were the ones who had the highest viral load. Combine a high viral load with a weakened and weakening immune system then the effect was sometimes very bad indeed. So, for gay males even kissing was bad news because CMV is passed very readily in saliva. One of the arguments from the anti-‘CMV as a cause of AIDS’ lobby was that why, if 90%+ of sexually active gay males were infected with CMV, didn’t they all get AIDS? One of the papers I read showed that 10% of sexually active gay males were having 90% of the sex, and 10% of IVDUs were sharing 90% of the needles. The most active in those demographics had the highest viral loads, the weakest immune systems, and, therefore, the most disease. This fantastic paper (partly produced by the CDC) contains a diagram showing that ‘HIV’ incidence declined sharply after 1982.

Back to Griffiths and the second key concept following on from ‘viral load’, is the ‘tipping point’ or ‘threshold value’. Once the viral load passes a certain point the risk of disease shoots up rapidly. If we look at AIDS patients, the syndrome would first show itself with permanently swollen lymph glands, then gradually the symptoms get worse as the immune system weakens, the T4-helper cell count declines, the T8-suppressor cells increase in numbers, and the various infections and pathogens, including CMV, take over the body in full-blown AIDS, from which there was no recovery.

Thank you for listening to Episode Eighteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Nineteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will tell you more about what I learned from ‘The Stealth Virus’, including what I believe to be a perfect description of how CMV acts in AIDS patients. Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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://rebeccaculshawsmith.substack.com/p/world-aids-day-now-with-a-side-of/comments?utm_source=substack%2Csubstack&publication_id=702441&post_id=152413283&utm_medium=email%2Cemail&isFreemail=true&comments=true&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment

https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/Models/aids/chapter8.pdf WEAK LINKAGE BETWEEN HIV EPIDEMICS IN HOMOSEXUAL MEN AND INTRAVENOUS DRUG USERS IN NEW YORK CITY

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stealth-Virus-Prof-Paul-Griffiths/dp/1477566791 The Stealth Virus

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.

In previous episodes I have stated that the CDC regarded AIDS / GRID as a complete mystery. In future episodes, I’ll explore the extraordinary lengths they went to ‘discover’ the source of AIDS. In my opinion the CDC’s AIDS Task Force, led by James Curran and Don Francis, deceived the public, because they were desperate to find some kind of widespread medical problem that would preserve the organization and their jobs. As James Curran stated in his Global Chronicles interview: ‘The political background, at least as I remember it, was that Ronald Reagan had just been elected President to replace Jimmy Carter. The main thing was the concern about a decrease in domestic spending. There was a hiring freeze at the CDC and a freeze on a lot of budgetary aspects of CDC, as well as a commitment to close the Public Health Service hospitals and to cut back on domestic spending.’ There must have been a real concern that the CDC might be closed too, especially on the back of the 1976 Swine Flu fiasco, and the six months it took to get to the bottom of the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak the same year. So, to be saved from the chop, as Kary Mullis said, ‘The CDC needed a good plague.’

In Episodes Fifteen and Sixteen, I outlined the clear links between CMV and PCP pneumonia and CMV and KS. Today, in Episode Seventeen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘CMV and Toxoplasmosis’, I will explore in more detail the close association between CMV and another marker disease of ‘early’ AIDS, Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is a common infection that you can catch from the poo of infected cats, or infected meat. It's usually harmless but if you have a weakened immune system toxoplasmosis may cause problems with your eyes, brain, heart or lungs. In ‘And The Band Played On,’ Nick Rock’s toxoplasmosis is finally diagnosed in November 1980 after the top of his skull had been removed (p45). As I said previously, two months later CMV was running rampant through Rock’s body as he approached death.

As I’ve also said previously and as I’ll repeat ad nauseum the CDC were desperate to propagate the idea that AIDS/GRID was a complete mystery. However, in 1979, a paper was published titled ‘Pneumocystis carinii, Toxoplasma gondii, Cytomegalovirus and the Compromised Host’. It states, ‘Pneumocystis carinii and Toxoplasma gondii are the two major parasitic protozoan pathogens in the immunocompromised host, both parasites are associated with cytomegalovirus infection in immunosuppressed hosts. Although Pneumocystis and Toxoplasma will be the major focus of this paper, infection with these two organisms cannot be discussed without reference to cytomegalovirus. Infection with one of these organisms, especially cytomegalovirus, may facilitate secondary infection by Pneumocystis carinii or Toxoplasma gondii. There has been ample documentation of concomitant infection with Toxoplasma and cytomegalovirus in the compromised host. In 1956, simultaneous disseminated cytomegalic inclusion disease and toxoplasmosis in an adult with myeloid metaplasia was described. In 1968 the National Cancer Institute was the first to call attention to the striking concurrence of disseminated cytomegalovirus and Toxoplasma infection in patients with altered host defenses. They suggested that this association might be more than a fortuitous occurrence and that there might be a symbiotic relationship. Individual human cells infected with both organisms also have been observed.’

The paper also confirms that ‘dual infections with cytomegalovirus were noted in the earliest clinical series of immunosuppressed patients with P. carinii pneumonitis. In a recent electron microscopic study of P.carinii, structures were found within the cytoplasm of this parasite that resemble cytomegalovirus.’

The summary is clear, ‘Toxoplasma and Pneumocystis are important opportunistic pathogens that account for significant morbidity and mortality in the compromised host. There is obviously a need to understand the pathogenic mechanisms responsible for disease production by these organisms. The occurrence of concomitant infection of these parasites with Cytomegalovirus suggests more than a fortuitous relationship.’

When the first AIDS, or GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) cases were reported, gay males afflicted with PCP and KS, the CDC declared it was all a huge mystery and we were ‘all doomed.’ However, the medical literature pre-1981 contained extensive evidence that PCP and KS were both closely associated with a virus carried by 90%+ of sexually active gay males, CMV, and that these combinations could have fatal consequences. It was clear that Toxoplasmosis and CMV were also close bedfellows. Perhaps AIDS/GRID wasn’t such a huge mystery after all….

Thank you for listening to Episode Seventeen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Eighteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will tell you more about CMV and the many reasons why I believe it should, by itself, be considered to be one of the causes of AIDS. Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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

James Curran interview

https://www.globalhealthchronicles.org/aids CDC’s fantastic AIDS resource

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1238480/pdf/westjmed00245-0044.pdf ‘Pneumocystis carinii, Toxoplasma gondii, Cytomegalovirus and the Compromised Host’

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 book and its four-year writing process, from inspiration to publication, and all points in between.

I suspect those of you who have listened to the previous episodes will be asking, when is Paul going to tell us about the book? Well, I did tell you this show will look at all aspects of the book, from inspiration to publication. I was inspired to write a book because of HIV/AIDS and as time went on I became more and more interested in researching the syndrome. During the spring of 2021 I started work on my second ‘AIDS’ book, ‘The Fast Lane Experiment’ which I will tell you more about in a later episode but all the time my research continued, and all the time I became evermore convinced that the official ‘HIV causes AIDS’ narrative was a lie. It was this realization that would ultimately lead to ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, but there would be at least one more book title before that happened…..

So, today, in Episode Sixteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘CMV and PCP pneumonia’, I will explore in more detail the close association between CMV and the second main marker disease of ‘early’ AIDS, PCP pneumonia. Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) is a rare, serious lung infection most common in people with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS, chronic lung disease, cancer, or who are taking certain post-transplant medications.

As I have stated in previous episodes, the very first ‘AIDS’ paper published in the CDC’s MMWR bulletin on 5th June 1981, ‘Pneumocystis Pneumonia -- Los Angeles’, described how ‘in the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection.’ Even though the Editorial Note said that ‘the role of CMV infection in the pathogenesis of pneumocystosis remains unknown’, once I typed CMV/PCP into google I soon discovered that the two were often described as a double act, partners in crime. The first UK ‘AIDS’ case, was reported in the Lancet in December 1981 under the headline ‘PRIMARY PNEUMOCYSTIS CARINII AND CYTOMEGALOVIRUS INFECTIONS’. This a very important, as well as historic, paper and I will return to it in future episodes.

Spookily, 21 years earlier the same journal included this paper: ‘CYTOMEGALIC INCLUSION DISEASE AND PNEUMOCYSTIS CARINII INFECTION IN AN ADULT’. This paper is I believe one of the most important papers of the 20th century, or at least it should be. It contains the story of the so-called Manchester Sailor, David Carr, an individual that Edward Hooper devotes two chapters to in his book ‘The River’. Again, this is such an important part of the AIDS jigsaw puzzle, I will return to it in future episodes. For now, I will focus on the Discussion part of the paper. The authors state in an almost Nostradamus-like manner: ‘The association (of CMV) with Pneumocystis carinii infection was of further interest. Simultaneous Pneumocystis and cytomegalic inclusion infections have also been described in an infant. The association of these two apparently separate and normally saprophytic infections is interesting, and perhaps not entirely fortuitous, especially since the nature of the Pneumocystis organism has not yet been determined. In due course a closer relationship may be established. It is important to recognise their potential pathogenicity and their ability to produce, either alone or in combination, fatal infections in man. There is some evidence that this danger is increased by prolonged treatment with steroids and antibiotics. Possibly more cases will occur because of the increasing use of these drugs. At present, there is no effective treatment.’

Hooper notes that David Carr’s health problems had begun in February 1956 and he had received ‘massive penicillin injections.’ He attended Christies Radium Hospital in Manchester on a monthly basis from the start of 1958, to get radiotherapy and steroid treatment for rashes on his back and shoulders.’

By the late 1970s a subset of sexually active, ‘fast-lane’ gay males were taking antibiotics and steroids in massive amounts.

When the first AIDS, or GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) cases were reported, gay males afflicted with PCP and KS, the CDC declared it was all a huge mystery and we were ‘all doomed.’ However, the medical literature pre-1981 contained extensive evidence that PCP and KS were both closely associated with a virus carried by 90%+ of sexually active gay males, CMV, and that these combinations could have fatal consequences. Perhaps AIDS/GRID wasn’t a mystery at all….

Thank you for listening to Episode Sixteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Seventeen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will tell you about yet another association between CMV and another key ‘early’ AIDS marker disease, Toxoplasmosis. Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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.infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk/sites/default/files/Sub%20Docs%201001%20-%201300%20/Sub%20Docs%201001%20-%201300%20/%201001%20-%201300%20%28ZY%29/PRSE0000426%20-%20Primary%20Pneumocystis%20Carinii%20and%20Cytomegalovirus%20Infections%20-%2012%20Dec%201981.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/lmrk077.htm#:~:text=In%20the%20period%20October%201980,Two%20of%20the%20patients%20died. MMWR.

https://www.penroseinquiry.org.uk/finalreport/pdf/LIT0013977.PDF ‘CYTOMEGALIC INCLUSION DISEASE AND PNEUMOCYSTIS CARINII INFECTION IN AN ADULT’.

http://www.aidsorigins.com/wp-content/uploads/The-River-by-Edward-Hooper-2021-edition.pdf The River, Edward Hooper

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 book and its four-year writing process, from inspiration to publication, and all points in between.

In Episode Fifteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘CMV and Kaposi’s Sarcoma’, I will explore in more detail the close association between CMV and one of the two main marker diseases of ‘early’ AIDS, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS). KS is a type of cancer that forms in the lining of blood vessels and lymph vessels. The cancer forms growths of cells, called lesions, on the skin. The lesions often form on the face, arms and legs. The lesions may look pink, red, purple or brown. It was generally found in old men of mediterranean origin, often taking benign form. It’s appearance in gay males in virulent form was one of the mysteries of ‘early’ AIDS. It rarely appeared in IVDU’s or hemophiliacs. Why did KS affect gay males and not the other two main affected demographics? I’ll give you a member of the CDC’s Task Force’s answer in a future episode.

On p65 of ‘And The Band Played On’, it states that ‘African KS had been linked to a herpes virus, CMV’. I googled KS/CMV to see what I could find and I discovered there were half a dozen papers from Gaetano Giraldo dating back to the early 1970s exploring the connection. In his 1978 paper, ‘Antibody patterns to herpesviruses in Kaposi's sarcoma. II. Serological association of American Kaposi's sarcoma with cytomegalovirus’ he writes, the prominent finding of this extended serologic analysis on American and African Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) patients and appropriately matched control groups is the detection of a specific serologic association of cytomegalovirus (CMV) with American KS patients. All American KS sera contained CMV antibodies and the result is strongly reminiscent of the data obtained previously for European KS’.

One of the paper’s co-authors is Bijan Safai, described by the head of the CDC’s AIDS Task Force, James Curran, as ‘an outstanding expert in Kaposi's sarcoma at Memorial-Sloan Kettering’. In 1980, Safai published this paper, ‘Association of Kaposi's Sarcoma with Second Primary Malignancies’, in which he stated, ‘The initial search for virus particles resulted in the isolation of a cytomegalovirus (CMV) in a KS tissue culture cell line. Subsequent analyses have revealed a specific serologic association with KS and CMV.’ Presciently as far as AIDS was concerned, Safai goes further and outlines in a diagram how CMV might produce cancers. Persistent heavy infection, combined with persistent heterogenic stimulation, would produce increased synthesis of defective virus particles, leading to multiple cell tropism, resulting in multiple cancers.

In the late 1970s / early 1980s, gay males were taking lots of drugs, drinking alcohol, and sniffing amyl nitrites, ‘poppers’, on an industrial scale. Poppers cause vasodilation, widening of blood vessels, and, as I explained earlier, KS is a type of cancer that forms in the lining of blood vessels and lymph vessels. It seemed obvious to me that KS and Poppers, like lung cancer and cigarettes, were connected and I wasn’t the only one, as I was to find out.

Safai’s paper concluded, ‘Our study has confirmed a significant association between KS and second primary malignancies of the lymphoreticular system, in which CMV frequently remains in a latent form. This would seem to strengthen the probability of related etiopathogenic mechanisms between the two neoplasms.’

Safai was a co-author of the ‘National Case-Control Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in Homosexual Men: Part 1, Epidemiologic Results’, in which CMV appears a grand total of zero times. In ‘How To Survive A Plague’, p26, gay Greenwich Village medical scientist, infectious diseases expert, and a doctor with over a 1,000 gay male patients, Joseph Sonneband recalls how there was ‘an overwhelming epidemic of CMV in his gay patients in the late 1970s/ and early 1980s and he wrote several papers outlining why he believed CMV was a likely cause of AIDS. However, he could not answer the question, ‘what might KS and CMV have in common?’ If only he’d read the Giraldo/ Safai papers. If only Safai had told him. According to France on p43, Sonneband’s business partner, Mathilde Krim, mystified by the KS cases, called Safai who told her about the AIDS cases on his ward but failed to mention the ‘specific serologic association with KS and CMV’. Why not?

Thank you for listening to Episode Fifteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Sixteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will tell you about another close association, that between CMV and the other main marker disease of ‘early’ AIDS, PCP pneumonia.

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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

James Curran interview

https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/1097-0142%2819800315%2945%3A6%3C1472%3A%3AAID-CNCR2820450629%3E3.0.CO%3B2-A Safai paper

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Plague-Activists-Scientists/dp/1509839402 ‘How To Survive A Plague’, David France

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Band-Played-Politics-People-Epidemic/dp/0312374631 ‘And The Band Played On’, Randy Shilts.

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 book and its four-year writing process, from inspiration to publication, and all points in between.

In Episode Fourteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘CMV and AIDS’, I will reveal a series of ‘firsts’, and other details, which should have made CMV a prime suspect in the search for the cause of AIDS. Perhaps would have done if it had not been for the conviction of Don Francis, formulated in July 1981, that AIDS was caused by a new pathogen, most likely a retrovirus.

In February 1981, a paper revealed that CMV had been found in 94% of homosexual patients attending a San Francisco VD clinic, as opposed to 54% of heterosexual men and 43% of male volunteer male blood donors. The authors of the paper featured in the 1983 BBC documentary about AIDS, ‘Killer In The Village.’ A similar percentage – 92% - was discovered at a London hospital’s STD clinic in 1982.

In June 1981, a paper stated that ‘Acute CMV infection is associated with a reversal in the normal ratio of helper to suppressor T lymphocytes with relative and absolute decreases in T helper cells and corresponding increases in T suppressor cells.’ Exactly what happened with AIDS patients. The paper also noted that ‘During convalescence, helper T lymphocytes increase, suppressor T lymphocytes decrease.’  What if there was no convalescence?

Four days later, the CDC’s MMWR bulletin included the first national / international report of the new immune deficiency epidemic in male homosexuals. ‘In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed PCP pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection.’

A month later another MMWR carried a report on the new Kaposi’s Sarcoma / PCP pneumonia epidemic in gay males. The results of tests for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection were available for 12 patients. All 12 had serological evidence of past or present CMV infection. In 3 patients for whom culture results were available, CMV was isolated from blood, urine and/or lung of all 3.’ Even more revealing was the sentence: ‘A specific serologic association with CMV infection has been demonstrated among American and European patients with Kaposi’s sarcoma.’ Of which more in the next episode.

The CDC’s Task Force National Case-Control Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in Homosexual Men: Part 2 Laboratory Results, which was buried for eighteen months, showed that evidence of CMV infection had been found in 165/167 subjects, Cultures of patients' urine and throat swab specimens yielded cytomegalovirus more frequently than those of the combined controls, 13 (25%) of 52 patients having an isolation made from one or more sites, versus 9 (7%) of 124 combined controls. Analysis was done on CMV isolates obtained from ten patients and ten controls. Results suggested that each isolate represented a different strain of CMV.

A paper reporting on the first blood transfusion AIDS case, that of a baby, states that at the time of death the donor was suffering from ‘disseminated cytomegalovirus infection’. The baby itself tested positive for CMV, although this fact was hidden from the American public.

The first Hemophilia-associated AIDS case in the USA, an elderly man in Denver, was also suffering from a CMV infection.

During the interval between October 1981 and June 1983, 10 autopsies of patients with AIDS were studied in the Laboratory of Pathology, NIH. There were CMV inclusions in the autopsy lungs of all but I patient.

Thank you for listening to Episode Fourteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. I will tell you more about the association between CMV and Kaposi’s sarcoma in Episode Fifteen of ‘A Dive Into Darkness.’  

Till the next time, goodbye and happy reading.

‘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://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6260871/  ‘Prevalence of cytomegalovirus infection in homosexual men’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z2lbp/horizon-19821983-killer-in-the-village  BBC documentary

https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC1046298&blobtype=pdf  ‘Antibodies to CMV in homosexual and heterosexual men attending an STD clinic.’

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6262407/ ‘Analysis of T lymphocyte subsets in cytomegalovirus mononucleosis’

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

https://cssh.northeastern.edu/pandemic-teaching-initiative/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2020/09/1981.07.03.Morbidity_Mortality.pdf 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6309049/ 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1916399/pdf/amjpathol00192-0119.pdf Autopsy Pathology in the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome