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 substance—dubbed "Miracle Mineral Solution" or "MMS"—has long been promoted by fringe groups as a combination miracle cure and vaccine for everything from autism to cancer and HIV/AIDS.
The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly warned consumers not to drink MMS, last year calling it effectively a "dangerous bleach" that could cause "severe vomiting" and "acute liver failure." But those warnings haven't stopped QAnon devotees—who believe in a world where Donald Trump is at war with shadowy deep-state "cabal"—from promoting a lethal substance as a salve for a health crisis that speaks to the darkest recesses of fringe thought.
While conspiracy theorists may disagree about what cabal is behind coronavirus, many of them agree on the "cure": MMS. The substance, which becomes bleaching agent chlorine dioxide when combined with a citric acid like lime juice, has perhaps most prominently been promoted by a website linked to Jim Humble, a self-proclaimed archbishop who says he found MMS while on a gold-mining expedition in South America.
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, among other ailments.
"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.
In August, the FDA said it was "not aware of any scientific evidence" that MMS has medical properties. In 2009, a woman who took MMS to avoid contracting malaria died almost immediately after swallowing it for the first time.
"Ingesting these products is the same as drinking bleach," FDA Acting Commissioner Ned Sharpless said in an August 2019 statement.
