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 Episode Twenty-Seven properly, I wish to point out that last week in the USA, the Republican-led House select subcommittee released its final report on the government's COVID-19 response. Scripps reported that ‘Republicans on the committee insisted that former government infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed a false narrative about the virus' origins.’ The report states: “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” Was “Prompted” by Dr. Anthony Fauci to “Disprove” the Lab Leak Theory.’ According to the report, Fauci stated ‘he may not have ever actually read Proximal Origin. This raises questions of why he would cite a paper, he did not even read, from the White House podium as proof COVID-19 was not the result of a lab leak.’ Yes, this is the very same Anthony Fauci who was America’s AIDS czar for decades and who pushed a similarly false narrative about the origins of AIDS for 40 years, that AIDS was a single disease, caused by a single virus called HIV!
Not coincidentally, in the same COVID-19 report, Fauci’s assistant David Morens is said to have ‘Likely Destroyed Evidence, Used Personal Email to Hide from Accountability, and Acted Unbecoming of a Federal Employee; Used Personal E-Mail Accounts to Avoid the Freedom of Information Act and Accountability; Deleted Federal Records illegally; Likely Provided False Statements to Congress; his actions violated NIH policy’. This was the same David Morens who in 1983 was a co-author of the CDC’s ‘National Case-Control Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in Homosexual Men: Part 2 - Laboratory Results’.
That leads me nicely onto Episode Twenty-Seven of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, ‘The CDC’s Response To AIDS – Part One’, where I will cover one of the key areas of my HIV/AIDS research, the area which led me eventually to write the conspiracy-thriller ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, the CDC’s response to the new immunodeficiency epidemic, especially its ‘KSOI Task Force’s Case-Control Study’.
As I’ve stated in previous episodes, in 1981 the CDC was fearing extinction courtesy of the new Reagan administration and was desperate to find a new epidemic that could keep it going. Accordingly, the new cases of immune deficiency in gay men was greeted like manna from heaven in CDC’s Atlanta HQ. Almost from the get-go the CDC’s James Curran manipulated the epidemic for political purposes. The original title of the 5th June 1981 MMWR was ‘PCP pneumonia in homosexual men – Los Angeles.’ The reference to ‘homosexual men’ was removed. As Shilts commented in ‘And The Band Played On’ p69, ‘Don’t offend the gays and don’t inflame the homophobes. These were the twin horns on which the handling of this epidemic would be torn from the first day of the epidemic.’ Shilts says in his introduction: ‘People died whilst public health authorities and the political leaders who guided them, refused to take the tough measures necessary to curb the epidemic’s spread, (ie shutting down the bath-houses) opting for political expediency over the public health.’
The CDC’s handling of the epidemic is chronicled in some detail by Shilts, who knew ‘everything’ about the response courtesy of Don Francis. The Monday after the MMWR was published, 8th June, saw the first meeting of an ‘ad hoc Task Force’ hurriedly put together to investigate the outbreaks of PCP pneumonia and KS. This quickly became the ‘Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections Task Force’ with Curran as its Chair.
The CDC’s tactics were clear from the start: first, drag out its investigation for as long as possible, and then drag it out some more; second, make the AIDS ‘net’ as wide as possible. The bigger the epidemic, the better its chances were of survival. On p170 Shilts tells us that many FDA officials ‘thought the CDC had taken a bunch of unrelated illnesses and lumped them into some made-up phenomenon as a brazen ruse to get publicity and funding for their threatened agency. Bureaucrats had been known to undertake more questionable methods to protect their budgets.’
Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-Seven of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell your friends about it. In Episode Twenty-Eight of ‘A Dive Into Darkness’, I will continue my deep dive into the CDC’s KSOI Task Force Case-Control study and uncover further 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 and all the references/links connected with this podcast can be found at my ‘A Dive Into Darkness’ Substack page.
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.amazon.co.uk/Band-Played-Politics-People-Epidemic/dp/0285640194 ‘And The Band Played On’
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.12.04-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT-ANS.pdf House select subcommittee final report on the government's COVID-19 response
James Curran interview
https://cascades.substack.com/publish/posts My Substack site, ‘A Dive Into Darkness’
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