Okay, first things first: Miracle Mineral Solution is still bogus, useless, unproven, dangerous, and complete bullshit. The people making money off this misleading garbage are among the worst orders of scumbags. Even if the stuff itself were harmless, telling people to stop taking their prescribed HIV medication is unforgivably irresponsible, and Jim Humble is a piece of shit.
All that stands. But, there’s one point that needs clarifying, and on which my earlier vitriol should be toned down just a little.
The FDA warning that kicked this all off said that MMS, “when used as directed, produces an industrial bleach”. And, while they’re not wrong to be concerned about this, the distinction that I and others failed to make was one between “bleach” and “a bleach”.
Taking the suggested dose of MMS is not equivalent to necking a bottle of the stuff that cleans your toilet. Dr* T explains the chemistry, and looks at exactly what’s going on in the case of MMS. The conclusion is that “drinking bleach” is not a fair characterisation of this particular quack’s pseudomedical recommendations.
So, that’s worth noting. “Bleachgate”, though pithy, inaccurately oversimplifies the problems with Miracle Mineral Solution.
However, Jim Humble does recommend taking sixty times the maximum amount of chlorine dioxide indicated by FDA guidelines, every hour for ten hours. This is still very dangerous.
And there’s no evidence that it has any chance of doing any good, based on any reliable testing.
And he steers people away from proven scientific medicine that has reams of reliable data backing it up, thus endangering people’s lives, while having no medical qualifications to give weight to his own insane recommendations.
And the anti-skeptical backlash faced by Rhys Morgan was still irrational, unjustified, and tragic.
And there are still pages and pages of bullshit being peddled to the ill-informed, about how this stuff can treat cancer, AIDS, and a whole bunch of other illnesses that people need serious treatment for – with a tiny, disingenuous disclaimer at the bottom of the page where it claims that MMS is “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”, in direct contradiction to the claims clearly made on the rest of the page.
So, y’know. It’s still plenty fucked up.
Buffy is all over this one, too, and the Ministry of Truth has a fascinating look into an unqualified fake doctor called Christian Pankhurst, who is apparently a big player in the MMS business and another total dick. That blog also uncovers further evidence of deliberate deception on the part of these quacks, which is well worth a look.
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