This is a real FFS moment. The rise of Coronavirus has brought the hucksters and grifters rushing out to start flogging quack cures. One of the new offerings is MMS (or Miracle Mineral Supplement). It is not actually new, but rather is an old bit of quackery that has zombie like arisen from the dead. This stuff is industrial bleach.
MMS
As I mentioned above, MMS is chlorine dioxide, an industrial bleach. I’ve written about it before.
This “miracle” is quite vile stuff with well-documented effects. Let me quote the Wikipedia page that contains references that you can check yourself …
Sodium chlorite, the main constituent of MMS, is a toxic chemical[3][4] that can cause acute kidney failure[5] if ingested. Small amounts of about 1 gram can be expected to cause nausea, vomiting, shedding of internal mucous membranes such as those of the small and large intestine(producing so-called “rope worms“) and even life-threatening hemolysis in persons who are deficient in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has set a maximum level of 0.8 mg/L for chlorine dioxide in drinking water.[6] Naren Gunja, director of the New South Wales, Australia Poisons Information Centre, has stated that using the product is “a bit like drinking concentrated bleach” and that users have displayed symptoms consistent with corrosive injuries, such as vomiting, stomach pains, and diarrhea.[7][8]
MMS is falsely promoted as a cure for HIV, malaria, hepatitis viruses, the H1N1 flu virus, common colds, autism, acne, cancer, and much more. The name was coined by former Scientologist[9] Jim Humble in his 2006 self-published book
What is the latest update on this very dangerous quackery?
Will Sommer writes in Daily Beast about what has been happening …
As the global death toll from an alarming new coronavirus surged this week, promoters of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were urging their fans to ward off the illness by purchasing and drinking dangerous bleach.
The term “QAnon conspiracy theory” is of course a big bold flashing red neon sign that announces “here is a gullible idiot”. To be honest, the prefix “Pro-Trump” is perhaps also similar. If indeed you can sell these people the idea the Trump has been especially chosen by God or that the QAnon deep state conspiracy is credible, then yes, you have the ideal self-selected crowd of gullible idiots.
They are now being told that MMS [the stuff that is bleach] will cure the Coronavirus … and apparently also cancer, flu, autism, etc… There is nothing it will not magically cure.
Is it really being promoted as a Coronavirus cure?
In short, indeed yes.
“I’m going to have to get home, and MMS the whole state,” prominent QAnon promoter Jordan Sather told his audience in a recent video. “MMS the whole shit out of everything.”
“Chief Police 2,” a prominent anonymous QAnon account on Twitter, also pushed MMS as the coronavirus spread. On Friday, the account’s operator urged its nearly 18,000 followers to buy “20-20-20 spray,” an MMS concoction.
“New followers protect yourself with the 20-20-20 spray,” the tweet read.
Through a Mexico-based church, the “Genesis II Church of Health and Healing,” MMS is offered for sale for $45. The church’s website claims it will eliminate coronavirus.
“ALL KITS HAVE THE 20-20-20 ESSENTIALS THAT CAN KILL THE CORONAVIRUS, OR ANY OTHER VIRUS JUST SPRAY YOUR MOUTH TWICE A DAY,” the church’s website reads.
(No I’m not going to link to them)
Coronavirus is also supposedly a conspiracy
Well yes, I confess I was waiting for this to pop up. Every time something major happens, up pops a conspiracy claim.
Coronavirus’ spread was a perfect fit for QAnon conspiracy theorists and others on the fringe right, who have already adopted the idea that the disease has been manufactured by shadowy forces. Sather, for example, has cited a 2015 patent for a potential avian coronavirus vaccine to suggest that the human form of the disease was deliberately created. Conspiracy-theory hub Infowars, meanwhile, has promoted the false idea that Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates’ philanthropic efforts are just a cover for a “depopulation agenda” centered on the virus.
Last thought
Oh come now, you just know what comes next.
With a call to gullible idiots to drink bleach, we clearly have a mad dash taking place for the next Darwin Award.
In fact, we may already have a potential winner …
Further Reading
- Wikipedia – Miracle Mineral Supplement
- Daily Beast (28 Jan 2020) – QAnon-ers’ Magic Cure for Coronavirus: Just Drink Bleach!
- If you are wondering what QAnon is all about, then here is the wikipedia page on that bit of modern lunacy.
- Others also spotlighting this latest bleach craze …