Plenty of Americans Are Drinking Bleach, Still for Sale on Amazon

Enter the term “Miracle Mineral Solution” into the search bar on Amazon.com, and, sure enough, there’s a wide selection of products that online reviewers say cure everything from asthma to arthritis.

The problem is that the cure-all potion commonly known as MMS is, in essence, industrial grade bleach. And selling this toxic and sometimes deadly chemical concoction as medicine is illegal.

“It is designed to kill bacteria, pathogens, germs,” said Richard Parsons, a toxicologist at King’s College London. “It will do that to human tissue.”

One part sodium chlorite, a chemical disinfectant, and one part acid, MMS has been around since the 1990s. It shot up in popularity in 2020 after former President Donald Trump floated disinfectant as a possible Covid treatment.

The idea was swiftly debunked, but existing sellers seized on the global attention, catapulting a fringe operation into a big business where sellers on mainstream shopping sites like Amazon, Etsy, eBay and Poshmark openly hawk the stuff.

And some sellers minted millions: One of the largest was a church, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, run by a family whose rise and fall is the subject of “ Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure,” a new podcast by Bloomberg, Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment.

Amazon told Bloomberg that sales of MMS are prohibited.

“We have proactive measures in place to prevent this product from being sold, and we continuously monitor our store,” a spokesperson said. “Those who violate our policies are subject to action including potential removal of their account.”

But several sellers remain on the site, under the guise of product descriptions like “chlorine dioxide kit.” Other online retailers hawking versions of MMS, including Etsy, eBay and Poshmark, removed listings after being contacted by Bloomberg News, citing violations of company policies.

But health experts say it’s only a matter of time before the products pop up again elsewhere online. Curbing sales of MMS has become a game of whack-a-mole that the Food and Drug Administration has played for over a decade, warning retailers and consumers of the compound’s dangers with little results.

Part of the reason that sales of MMS are so hard to quash is that while selling unproven treatments as medicine is illegal, it’s perfectly legal to buy and sell the ingredients that make up MMS. Many MMS sellers avoid running afoul of regulators by listing the stuff as water purification solutions rather than health aids, even sometimes citing FDA warnings about consumption in the listing fine print.

“They make use of common, everyday things that many of us have in our homes,” said Matt Motta, a professor of health policy at the Boston University School of Public Health.

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