Miracle ­Mineral Solution: Bleaching away the awful truth

Would you drink bleach? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But two men have built a global empire and started a religious movement on the back of the Miracle ­Mineral Solution.

Genesis II Church of Health and Healing cult leader Jim Humble.

Would you drink bleach? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it turns out there are still snake oil salesmen out there hawking junk cures to desperate customers.

Mark Grenon and Jim Humble built a global empire and started a religious movement on the back of the Miracle ­Mineral Solution, or MMS for short. The product had been falsely promoted as a cure for a range of illnesses, from the common cold to cancer. It turned out, however, that MMS was bleach. Humble, who claimed to have discovered MMS, is a former Scientologist and once claimed to be an alien. Grenon, the salesman of the operation, wore a white Panama hat as his signature look.

Humble says he's a god from the Andromeda Galaxy, sent to Earth to save humans. Picture: YouTube

Humble in one of his online videos.

MMS even made it from the US all the way to Australia, where it reportedly poisoned at least 10 Victorians and was investigated by federal health authorities. Independent testing in Australia found MMS contained 28 per cent sodium chlorite, a chemical used as a textile bleaching agent and disinfectant. Delicious. No wonder people were vomiting.

The latest season of podcast Smokescreen, from Bloomberg, Sony and Neon Hum Media, charts the rise of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing that touted MMS as a cure for cancer, herpes, AIDS, malaria, ­autism, high blood pressure, prostate problems and, eventually, Covid-19. Remember when former US president Donald Trump recommended people use bleach to cure Covid-19 on national television? Turns out Grenon had been spruiking bleach as a cure all for yonks before Trump’s now infamous press conference. In fact, Grenon reportedly had even written to then president Trump about a week before the press ­conference. This reviewer is not suggesting anything.

Humble, left, is interviewed by a journalist in Mexico. Source: ABC News

Genesis II hosts hundreds of seminars around the world teaching people how to make and sell MMS, which, again, is bleach. Smokescreen host Kristen V. Brown tells listeners the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing worked “a little bit like a multi-level marketing scheme” operating under the protection afforded to legitimate religions. “Cascading generations of Genesis II members would get trained, fan out to their various countries and then train and sell to other people (and) spread the miraculous myth of MMS,” she says. “You’re not a salesperson, you’re a health minister. And the regional sales manager? They’re an ordained bishop.”

Listeners can decide for themselves whether the church’s approach is cynical or delusional. To be really clear no one should be drinking bleach. Ignore your second cousin’s social posts. People have died and others badly injured.

At the start the podcast feels fun, like some weird black and white melodrama on late night free-to-air television. But there are highly distressing and, on occasion, deadly consequences to drinking bleach, and at times the podcast’s deep dive into the material can be upsetting. Take the story of ­couple Doug Nash and Sylvia Fink, who were in Vanuatu in 2008 with dreams of embarking on a sailing holiday. They needed anti-malaria medication but Fink struggled with the side effects of traditional drugs so someone suggested they try MMS. Fink tried the magic cure and within 10 minutes was overcome by nausea. The suggested antidote – vitamin C – did nothing. Nor did CPR. Fink died. And Nash, her grieving partner, was viciously attacked online by proponents of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing. If ever there were a lesson in why the truth matters, this is it.