The Public has been misled by those who govern the Nation's Public Health Institutions. Alarming indications of increasing prevalence of many diseases ought to have inspired those in charge to take seriously the possibility of an infectious component to these illnesses. Disease examples include autism in young infants, learning and behavioral disorders in school age children, chronic fatigue, depression and psychosis in young adults and neurodegenerative illnesses in the elderly. Other examples include the Gulf War Syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), breast and prostate cancers, and many other diseases.
My assessment is that no one in authority wanted to cope with the many implications of there being atypical, difficult to define viruses affecting the Nation. Major resistance arose especially from my identifying polio virus vaccines as the potential origin of the virus isolated from a patient with a chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Public Health officials had become uncritical proponents of vaccines and remained quite dubious about the very existence of CFS.
I termed these viruses “stealth” because they were not effectively recognized by the body's cellular immune system. If our immune defenses are equated with a homeland security, stealth viruses can simply be represented as terrorists who do not bear any insignias of their subversive political organizations. Their presence is revealed, however, by the damage they inflict.
I presented and published data indicate that stealth viruses can be detected using relatively simple tissue culture techniques and, providing one matches residual parts of the virus, by molecular methods such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). None of these leads were seized upon by those who could have readily provided confirmation.
The stakes were raised with a report of virus isolation from a woman with a long standing psychotic illness. The official response again was “others have tried and not succeeded in blaming all sorts of diseases on a virus; ergo you must be wrong.” Unfortunately, it was not “let's look at the data and try to repeat what is being presented.” Less than stellar efforts were made by the Public Health officials I contacted to grasp the underlying concepts, review the published work or engage in meaningful communication. They certainly did not want to face the consequences of acknowledging the presence of stealth viruses. Instead they failed the Public by doing next to nothing.
A case in point is the 2002 published report by FDA researchers of simian cytomegalovirus (SCMV) DNA in 3 of 8 tested licensed polio vaccines from the mid 1970's. The issue of probable SCMV contamination of live polio virus vaccines produced in kidney cultures from African green monkeys was raised in a 1972 joint FDA-Industry study showing SCMV infections in the monkeys routinely being used for polio vaccine production. Many licensed and approved lots of polio vaccines from Britain were also contaminated with SCMV, and in the case of vaccines produced using rhesus monkey kidneys, with rhesus cytomegalovirus (rhCMV). Both the US FDA researchers and their counterparts in Britain could not apparently culture live virus from the contaminated vaccines. This hardly justifies not looking fur ther for evidence of human infection by SCMV. Especially since I had reported culturing an SCMV-derived stealth virus from a CFS patient. A closely related virus was similarly cultured from a patient with a bi-polar psychotic illness. The CFS patient derived virus induced widespread cellular damage when inoculated into cats in the absence of any inflammation.
Cytomegalovirus contaminated polio vaccines tested in Africa provide a plausible explanation for the emergence and early spread of HIV. Again, the Public Health authorities don't want to address this topic. Certainly they do not want to test stored sera from African children to confirm the infectivity of cytomegalovirus contaminants in the early experimental lots of polio vaccines.
What if the FDA had taken action in 1972 in response to learning of widespread CMV contamination of monkeys being used in the production of live polio virus vaccines. Or if the Director of the FDA Bureau of Biologics were to have revealed this study when I informed him in 1977 that there was unexplained DNA in the vaccines. CDC could have responded to the 1992 invitation to visit my laboratory at the University of Southern California (USC). They would have seen the striking cell damage caused by patients' blood samples. Photos of the cultures were published in 1994 along with DNA sequence data. The sequence data were unequivocally matched to SCMV in a 1995 publication. Unsolicited proposals to CDC and FDA for financial assistance with collaborative studies were essentially ignored. While still at USC, I embarked on a culture a nd PCR based study to see how many other CFS patients were infected with SCMV-derived stealth-adapted viruses. Patient donated funds were removed from my University account in November 1995 and my laboratory was closed.
The indifference, antagonism and outright hostility of seemingly uncaring Public Health and University officials impacted on my capacity but not on my determination to pursue the research. I knew of too many people who had fallen prey to stealth viruses. Eventually, I knew that CDC, FDA and NIH would have to face the reality of stealth-adapted viruses. I now also realize that the Government has let itself open to a barrage of legal suits arguing Governments nonfeasance. Even worse, the Federal Government took predetermined action to restrict my ability to test for stealth viruses under a provision of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA). Interestingly, this Act does not pertain to testing for legal purposes. It is permissible for me to test on a request from a lawyer but not from a physician. On this basis I have dec ided to resume culture and PCR testing for stealth-adapted viruses.
The timing is appropriate since I now better understand how the body copes with these infections in the absence of an effective cellular immune system. This line of research has led to the discovery of an alternative pathway of cellular energy. The doom and gloom scenario of unmanageable stealth virus infections is giving way to a reasonable approach to at least supportive therapy. Funding from legal testing will help support research into how these products work.
