The Australian chapter of an international church that peddles bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus and other illnesses is selling the product locally.
The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing sells industrial-grade bleach as “Master” or “Miracle Mineral Solution” – also known as MMS – claiming it can cure COVID-19 as well as autism, HIV/AIDS, leukemia and acne.
The US leader of the organisation, Mark Grenon, said the chlorine dioxide product could “kill 99 per cent of the pathogens in the body”. A post on the Genesis website said MMS could have side effects, including stomach pain and diarrhea.
Grenon claimed he wrote to Donald Trump about its “sacramental cleansing water” days before the US president suggested injecting disinfectant to treat coronavirus.
MMS is not approved for consumption in Australia and the United States. Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) warned that MMS should be labelled as “poison” after four people in Victoria were hospitalised in 2014 following the consumption of the product.
Last week, a US federal court issued a ban on the organisation from selling and distributing its products. Judge Kathleen Williams said a preliminary injunction needed to be issued to prevent the Genesis from further violating the federal laws on food, drug and cosmetics.
In a complaint seeking the preliminary injunction, the US Food and Drug Administration said MMS was a misbranded and unapproved drug with “no published adequate and well-controlled studies” to support its treatment claims.
In late 2019, the agency also said it had received reports of consumers who suffered “from severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration, and acute liver failure after drinking these products”.
Professor Andrew Dawson, the clinical director of the NSW Poisons Information Centre, said four people in the state had to be hospitalised last year after taking MMS.
“I’m also aware of a patient in Queensland who became extremely sick and was hospitalised for several weeks,” Dawson told ABC’s 7.30.
Charles Barton, who runs the MMS Australia website, told the program MMS was “innocent and perfectly safe”.
The TGA told the program it was investigating MMS Australia.
