A church is offering a ‘miracle cure’ that consists of drinking a solution containing bleach.
A group calling itself Genesis II Church of Health and Healing plans to convene at a hotel resort in Washington state on Saturday to promote a “miracle cure” that claims to cure 95% of all diseases in the world by making adults and children, including infants, drink industrial bleach.
…The “church” is asking attendants of the meeting to “donate” $450 each, or $800 per couple, in exchange for receiving membership to the organization as well as packages of the bleach, which they call “sacraments”. The chemical is referred to as MMS, or “miracle mineral solution or supplement”, and participants are promised they will acquire “the knowledge to help heal many people of this world’s terrible diseases”.
They do not stint when it comes to listing the diseases that are supposedly cured such as malaria, ebola, dengue fever, all types of cancer, diabetes, autism, HIV and multiple sclerosis. That range alone should be enough to alert people that this is a quack remedy.
Fiona O’Leary, a campaigner against pseudo science whose work helped to get MMS banned in Ireland in 2016, said she was horrified that the Genesis II Church, which she called a “bleach cult”, was hosting a public event in Washington.
“This event is endangering people’s lives, especially children. We must protect vulnerable people from this dangerous quackery,” she said.
You would think that it would be illegal for people who take advantage of people’s gullibility in such dangerous ways. So why is this allowed in the US?
The FDA issued the blunt advice: “Consumers who have MMS should stop using it immediately and throw it away.”
A spokesman for the FDA told the Guardian that the agency could not comment on possible civil or criminal law enforcement actions, but added: “The FDA continues to advise consumers about the dangers of Miracle Mineral Solution and the agency has issued warnings to consumers over the past decade.”
This just shows how in the US, any institution that calls itself a ‘church’ is given unbelievable latitude. Maybe it will take deaths, especially of children, to get the government to act.
If that bleach was being used as a medicine would not if have to have FDA approval, if only as a patent medicine?
I am pretty sure some lowlife has been selling the stuff as a cure for autism though I may be thinking of the same Miracle Mineral Solution being sold as an enema.
They do not stint when it comes to listing the diseases that are supposedly cured such as malaria, ebola, dengue fever, all types of cancer, diabetes, autism, HIV and multiple sclerosis. That range alone should be enough to alert people that this is a quack remedy.
It is amazing what one can sell. Jade egg anyone?
“Maybe it will take deaths, especially of children, to get the government to act.”
Not holding my breath. Even the Newtown massacre couldn’t achieve that.
How can this be allowed?
Bottom line, it’s not. The issue is how to make the enforcers enforce that.
It doesn’t surprise me that the peddlers of this shit might try to use religious exemptions to evade regulation though. Religion is a bleach for the mind.
How, in a country where slavery is legal and grown men are allowed to have sex with 13 year old girls (if they marry them first, natch), in a country that executes children, how can dishonesty like this be allowed?
It is allowed because the practice takes advantage of blind spots within the law: They are operating as a religious institution and the zeitgeist allows religious institution wide, often obscene, latitude in their activities. The materials are mailed and paid for as sacramental materials. The components are all legal and relatively benign if consumed separately. It is the consumer, or their legal guardian, who mixes the components to produce the caustic compound. The target audiences are poor, often non-white, poorly educated, and frequently so indoctrinated in faith-based thinking that they are immune or incapable of reason and skeptical thinking.