Stealth Adapted Viruses and
Alternative Cellular Energy
W John Martin, MD, PhD.
Stealth-adaptation is a proposed mechanism that allows cell damaging (cytopathic) viruses to evade immune elimination through the deletion of genes coding the major antigens targeted by the cellular immune system. A prototype stealth-adapted virus cultured from a patient with chronic fatigue syndrome was readily transmissible to cats in which it induced an acute encephalopathy without localizing neurological signs. Vacuolating cellular damage was observed in many tissues of the animals, including the brain, in the absence of an accompanying inflammatory response. Comparable cellular changes were inducible in cultured normal human fibroblasts inoculated with frozen thawed blood mononuclear cells and cerebrospinal fluids of patients with a wide range of neurological and psychiatric illnesses.
The virus cultured from a chronic fatigue syndrome patient was cloned and partially sequenced. It comprises a fragmented, genetically unstable genome. It has viral sequences that can be aligned to various regions of the genome of human cytomegalovirus. Regions corresponding to genes coding the three major antigenic targets for anti-CMV cytotoxic T cells were absent or mutated. Where the comparison can be made, the sequences match much more closely to those of African green monkey simian cytomegalovirus (SCMV), indicating a presumptive origin from SCMV. The virus has also acquired sequences of both cellular and bacterial origins.
The FDA has reported that 3 of 8 licensed batches of polio vaccines released in the mid 1970's contained residual DNA of SCMV. Although the FDA was unable to culture live virus from these vaccines, the possibility exists that stealth-adapted SCMV has entered into humans from contaminated polio virus vaccines.
Stealth adaptation is presumably a generic process used by viruses to avoid immune defenses. An alternative (non-mitochondria) cellular energy (ACE) pathway appears to mediate both in vitro and in vivo recovery from stealth adapted viruses. The ACE pathway can also potentially participate in the recovery from conventional infections as well as other illnesses. Cellular energy is derived from mineral containing ACE particles that accumulate in infrequently refed stealth virus cultures. The particles show energy transducing properties, including fluorescence, electrostatic activity and electron donating capacity.
Various natural products can be prepared with ACE activity and are referred to as enerceuticals. Therapeutic trials using these products are providing encouraging results.