Ep 68-The Church of Bleach

A “miracle cure” gets whispered about at an autism conference, and the rabbit hole opens fast. We follow the bizarre rise of Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), a two-part chemical kit that produces chlorine dioxide, and how it’s been promoted as a treatment for everything from malaria to autism to COVID-19. The shocking part is not just the claim, it’s how normal it can look at first: concerned parents trading tips, meticulous logs, Facebook groups filled with testimonials, and a community that feels supportive and almost scientific on the surface.
Subscribe or follow, share this episode with someone who needs a reality check on “miracle cures,” and leave a rating and review. What do you think makes certainty so persuasive when the evidence is thin?

Resources & Further Reading
• FDA Warning on Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS)
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-warns-consumers-about-dangerous-and-potentially-life-threatening-side-effects-miracle-mineral

• U.S. Department of Justice: Genesis II Church Case
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/leaders-genesis-ii-church-health-and-healing-who-sold-toxic-bleach-fake-miracle-cure

• DOJ Criminal Charges Against Mark Grenon and Family
https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/doj-press-releases-involving-fda-oci/father-and-sons-charged-miami-federal-court-selling-toxic-bleach-fake-miracle-cure-covid-19-and

• Federal Court Case: United States v. Genesis II Church of Health and Healing
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-sd-flo/2080926.html

• Ars Technica: "Church of Bleach" Sentencing Coverage
https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/10/florida-men-sentenced-to-years-in-prison-for-selling-bleach-as-miracle-cure/

• ABC News: Florida Family Sentenced for Selling Fake COVID-19 Cure
https://abcnews.com/US/florida-family-sentenced-fake-covid-19-cure/story?id=103792447

• FDA Consumer Information on MMS and Chlorine Dioxide
https://www.drugs.com/fda-consumer/miracle-treatment-turns-into-potent-bleach-157.html

• Background: Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement

Transcript

Warm Catch Up And Life Updates

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Amanda. Jenna, that was so beautiful. Oh, thank you. Oh, okay. I missed you. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I'm good. I'm good. We've had a little time away from each other because we prepped in advance and we had our little mini sewed. And so yeah, I miss our little weekly get together. How's our baby Alley cat all healed up?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Oh yeah. Yep. He's doing good.

unknown 0:46

Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

It's all finally healed. Bless, bless up antibiotics.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah. What would we do without those? Oh my goodness. So I had a little time away because my daughter, Savannah, had her best friend come up from Florida. And basically I got to play a tourist. You know, have you ever played tourist in your own state? That's great because you do all the things that you don't normally think of doing. It's like that's for tourists. But it was really, really fun. Oh, a great time. Yeah. So we did like the bison range and the falls and the you know, the mall of America, and we went on a candlelit ghost, like cable car ghost lit tour of Minneapolis and like all this stuff, horse riding. But then, oh, and the Como

Playing Tourist And The Corpse Flower

SPEAKER_00 1:39

zoo. It's it's this free zoo in Minneapolis for those of you who aren't from here. They had the corpse flower viewing. Have you heard of the corpse flower? No. Okay, so this is a flower. It's a giant flower. It can get up to nine feet tall. It only blooms once every five to seven years. And that bloom only lasts for 24 to 48 hours. And the flower smells like rotting flesh. What? To attract pollinators. And so I've always wanted to see one. And there was one that bloomed unexpectedly, because this little guy, not little, he's probably seven feet tall, bloomed after two years. And so the zoo was so excited they didn't even have a chance to get the t-shirts there, you know, for sale. Like so we stood in line for over an hour and we got to have a viewing of this spectacular corpse flower. So that was exciting. Why people would bring their little kids to that, I don't know, because I'm sure little kids don't care. But how bad did it smell? Not as bad as I was expecting. Like I had, I was thinking, gosh, I was regretting not bringing a face mask. But no, you had to get up fairly close. But we were on like day two of the blooms, so it was closing. But yeah, it smelled, it smelled like dead bodies. So very cool. Very cool. But what's even more exciting that I wanted to share, I saved this to share with you on the pod, is that my daughter has gotten her first job. Yay! Um, her first job at a local retail store, and she's been regaling me with, you know, basically what it's like to deal with the public. I mean, you know, everybody's got to learn someday. And I said, when I when I interviewed you for a job, I don't know how many years ago, long time ago. Oh, long. And you told me you were a waitress or a server in a restaurant. I was like, uh-huh. Yeah. So there's somebody, I was like, that's it. She's she's she enjoys

First Job Lessons With Automatic Doors

SPEAKER_00 3:44

being stressed out. She gets stuff done. There's logistics and she can deal with the public. Done. Hire. So I'm really excited that this is happening for my daughter because she's been a little bit sheltered in the ways of the world. So she was telling me the other so she's been working at this place for about a month, and she was telling me a couple days ago that you know, when things are slow, they give them a list of things to do to keep busy as they should. And on her list was also I should say they dumped her in this place like without much training. Okay. So on her list was clean the clean the sliding glass, like the automatic doors to the to the glass on the automatic doors to the store. And so she was like, Great, grabs herself a squeegee and some windags. And she couldn't figure out how to clean the windows because the doors kept opening and closing because they're motion detected, right? So she she developed this strategy where she would stand back, pick a spot in her side of view, and then lunge for the door and like clean the spot before the door closed, and then step back and then do Oh my gosh. Instead of helping her, other staff members were just watching Val slightly agape.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

They were like, How long do we let her do this before we tell her you can turn that off?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

She's lunging at the doors. Oh man. And my daughter's very smart. So this is even more funny because it's like, you know, she's not challenged intellectually, but at this moment she must have been because eventually they showed her where the off button was. So she got very excited that she could turn the doors off. And she said she spray fogged the like the whole, like it was like foam all over the whole, the whole door because she was so excited to get at it all at once. And then as she's as she's wiping this one spot at eye level, she sees a customer standing right eye to eye, like staring at her as she's wiping this hole in the foam. Oh my god. I just wish I could be there like a fly on the wall, and just it's so it's so validating for me to know that she's getting to know so much about the world through working with the general public. So bless, bless her cotton socks. Just imagine trying to clean, trying to wind exit an automatic door as it's opening and closing.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

That feels very much like when someone starts for the first time in the service industry and they're like you're doing your closing duties right before you can all go home for the night. And then someone tells the new person, like, you have to empty the hot water out of the coffee maker.

unknown 6:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

And then so they're sitting there forever catching the hot water and then dumping it out, catching the hot water and dumping it. It's like that's just it's hooked up to a water line. It does not run out.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, no, that's hazing for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, yeah. But I I will say I'm glad she's working in a public service position. I do think the world would be a happier place if everyone was required, I don't know, a minimum of six months. Don't you think? Everyone would just be a lot more respectful of everybody.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Firm believer. Absolutely. Yeah, it teaches you so much more than your parents can teach you about how to how to survive in the world. Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

So today we're talking about something called MMS, which was we'll learn about, considered a miracle cure, and led to a religious movement that started a church. So good. Yeah. There's no real trigger warnings that I can think of, but um, before we move on to our resources, I will say for our correction section, this is gonna be an ad-free episode. You're welcome because I got I got a little too wordy and we don't want to be here all night. Yeah, baby Ally Cat needs a cuddle before bed. So here we go. So our resources, as usual, are gonna be listed in our show notes. But I mean, I did use the FDA

MMS Enters The Chat

SPEAKER_00 8:12

warnings, the court case files, there's information from the U.S. Department of Justice. Really, if you're really interested and want to do a deep dive into this topic, there is a BBC documentary about it. So I suggest you look into that. But with that, let's jump into it. In 2015, a BBC journalist walked into an autism conference, expecting to spend the day listening to talks about alternative therapies. It wasn't an unusual assignment because conferences like these have been increasingly common. Parents travel across the country to hear speakers discuss new research, emerging treatments, dietary interventions, behavioral therapies, supplements, and anything, anything else that might help their children. Some arrive carrying notebooks already filled with questions. Others come with folders thick enough to resemble college textbooks, packed with years of evaluations, lab results, specialist reports, and handwritten notes.

The BBC Finds A Miracle Cure

SPEAKER_00 9:15

By the time many families attend events like this, they've already spent years searching for answers. This particular autism conference looked exactly like most health conferences do. Vendors arranged books and pamphlets across folding tables, small groups gathered in hallways between presentations. Parents balanced coffee cups while discussing therapies that they'd tried and specialists that they recommended. Speakers moved from room to room as attendees checked schedules and compared notes. Nothing about the setting suggested that the reporter was about to hear one of the strangest healthcare stories of the modern internet era. The first mention of MMS came almost casually. A recommendation passed from one attendee to another. Someone mentioned a treatment. Someone else expressed interest. The reporter overheard the exchange and asked a few questions. What exactly was MMS and what did the initials stand for and how was it used? The answers became more surprising with every conversation. A conference attendee explained to the reporter that MMS stands for Miracle Mineral Solution. It was essentially a two-part chemical kit. Users mixed a sodium chloride solution with an acid like citric acid, creating chlorine dioxide. Several parents described it enthusiastically. Some discussed administering it orally, and others talked about treatment protocols involving enemas. A few described dramatic improvements that they believed they'd witnessed in their children after beginning the regimen. What stood out wasn't simply the recommendation itself, it was the confidence with which the family spoke about it. People weren't describing MMS as an experiment. They weren't speaking cautiously or presenting it as one possibility among many. The treatment was being discussed with the certainty usually reserved for things that people already decided are true. So the reporter kept asking questions, and one conversation led to another. One parent recommended a website, and the website referenced a Facebook group, and the Facebook group linked to conference presentations. And those presentations referenced books, and the books referenced organizations. And by the end of the day, it became obvious that MMS was not simply another product being sold at an autism conference. It was part of a large community. And the deeper the reporter dug, the stranger that community became. The Facebook groups alone contained thousands of members, parents who shared photographs, treatment logs, dosing schedules, and detailed descriptions of their children's progress. Some tracked sleep patterns, others recorded dietary changes, bowel movements, eye contact, language development, emotional regulation, and social interactions. Reading through the discussions felt less like scrolling through social media and more like reviewing thousands of personal case files. The overwhelming majority of participants did not appear reckless, or actually, they appeared quite the opposite. Most of them appeared intensely dedicated to their children. Many had invested years searching for therapies that might help their kids. They exchanged information with extraordinary care, comparing observations and encouraging one another through setbacks. The atmosphere was collaborative, almost scientific in its own way, even when the conclusions being reached were dramatically different than those accepted by mainstream medicine. And then there were the photographs. Again and again, parents posted images showing long strands of material expelled during treatment. The photographs often appeared alongside captions celebrating progress or documenting what members believed were parasites leaving the body.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, maybe this should have been a trigger warning because the community had a name for them. Rope worms. Oh my gosh. I know, right? For many families, producing rope worms represented evidence that the treatment was working. Entire discussions revolved around identifying

Rope Worm Photos And Misread Signs

SPEAKER_00 13:29

them, comparing them, and interpreting what they meant. Medical experts who later reviewed the images offered a very different explanation. Several suggested that the photographs appeared more consistent with mucus and damaged intestinal tissue than with parasites.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

My eyes are so big right now, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I'm so sorry. I was going to put you off your dinner. If they were correct, some parents may have been witnessing injuries that were caused by the treatment, interpreting the injuries as signs of recovery. So this is so disturbing. Not because the parents appeared malicious, they didn't. Most of them were genuinely convinced that they were helping their kids. And that's the detail that makes the entire story so difficult to understand. Because nobody involved appeared to think they were participating in something dangerous. They believed they found answers. And the more the reporter investigated, the more often certain names kept popping up. Conference organizers referenced these people. Group members quoted them. Websites promoted their books and lectures. Again and again, the same two figures emerged from the background. Jim Humble and Mark Greenon. At first glance, Humble appeared to be the more important of the two, despite his last name. After all, he was the man who claimed to have discovered MMS. For all the attention that Jim Humble received, very few people had actually met him, because most followers encounter him indirectly through books, videos, interviews, and presentations that are passed around online. But his story traveled farther than he ever could in person. By the time someone discovered MMS, the narrative was often already familiar: a remote jungle, a group of miners, a desperate medical situation, an accidental discovery that conventional

Jim Humble And The Origin Story

SPEAKER_00 15:17

medicine had somehow overlooked. Like many stories that survived for years, it had become polished through repetition. But Jim Humble wasn't a physician. He wasn't a microbiologist. He wasn't a tropical medicine specialist. By his own account, he was an aerospace engineer turned gold prospector who spent years working in remote mining operations throughout South America. The story that would eventually make him famous began during one of his expeditions for gold mining when several members of the team became ill with malaria. Medical treatment was unavailable, and faced with limited options, he mixed together chemicals that he had available, because apparently he had sodium chloride with him in order to purify the water there. So he administered this solution to the workers, and within hours he claimed they recovered. Whether the story unfolded exactly that way is difficult to determine, because over the years the details shifted depending on where it was told and who was telling it. But for many followers, the precise details mattered less than the broader message. The message that a man was operating far from hospitals and laboratories supposedly discovered something extraordinary. And history contains enough genuine examples of those kinds of stories to make them permanently attractive. I mean, we know about penicillin, we know about x-rays, we know that important discoveries occasionally emerge from unexpected places. The possibility feels exciting, although it's not entirely impossible. The challenge is, of course, that genuine discoveries eventually leave the realm of story and enter the realm of evidence where they survive rigorous testing and scrutiny, in other words, the scientific process. But the growth of MMS was something very different. It spread through testimonials. It was a subjective process. So one person would describe recovering from an illness, and another would report improvement in a family member, and someone else would share a dramatic before and after story. And over time, these individual accounts accumulated into something that felt increasingly difficult for followers to ignore. A visitor that arrives at an MMS forum for the first time would be able to find thousands of stories. And many of these stories involved illnesses that conventional medicine struggled to treat effectively, like chronic fatigue, Lyme disease, autoimmune conditions, persistent symptoms that had lingered for years despite repeated appointments and repeated interventions by traditional medicine approaches. The people sharing these stories were sincere and their messages were compelling. I mean, a polished advertisement can be dismissed, but a personal story really catches the heart of those looking for answers. Many followers described years spent searching for these answers. Some had seen specialist after specialist, and others tried medications, supplements, dietary interventions, and alternative therapies. The common thread running through many of the stories was disappointment. The details varied, but the emotional experience did not. So by the time people discovered MMS, many were already primed to believe that it was that something important might be hiding outside conventional medicine. And then they encountered a community full of people claiming they already found it. In 2015, a BBC reporter went undercover, claiming to be a relative of an autistic child. He was sold a bottle of liquid labeled as 22.4 sodium chlorite or 22.4% sodium chlorite, and a second labeled as 4% hydrochloric acid. When the BBC sent the chemicals to Kent Scientific Services, an independent laboratory, they were found to be 57% and 45% stronger than the advertised concentration, respectively. The man who sold them the chemicals was a member of a church called Genesis 2, which we're going to talk about shortly. And he told the reporter, I'm not going to say cure because I can get in trouble. I'd say purge. It can purge autism and Alzheimer's too. 170 children have had their diagnosis removed of autism in four years. This person advised 27 drops of MMS per day for a baby administered in a baby's bottle. Of his own use, he said, Oh, I put it in I should do it with a British eye. I put it in my eyes, my nose, my ears, a bathing it, I drunk it, I breathed it in my lungs, and I even got an injection in my butt with it. They're never gonna shut me down. All they can do is put me in a prison cell. Well, a month later, a jury in the state of Washington convicted another member of this Genesis II church, his name was Lewis Daniel Smith, for selling MMS as a miracle cure. And he faces a maximum of 34 years in prison. Carol Povey of the National Autistic Society said, no evidence of any kind exists to support the preposterous claims made for MMS as an intervention for autism. It's shocking to see that dubious companies continue to promote potentially very harmful products like these. Autism is a complex neurological condition without a cure. But regardless of the dangers and attempts to educate the public, the movement grew steadily throughout the 2000s. The advent of social media changed everything. I mean, it made it possible for ideas to travel faster than ever before. Communities that once would have remained isolated suddenly found each other. A parent in Florida could exchange information instantly with someone in Australia. A conference presentation delivered to a room of 50 people could reach thousands once it was uploaded online, and therefore the growth accelerated. And as the movement expanded, the claims surrounding MMS also expanded. What began as a supposed treatment for malaria gradually transformed into something larger. Followers began discussing cancer, Alzheimer's disease, hepatitis, influenza, HIV, autism. The list became so broad that it almost defies categorization. A visitor scrolling through MMS websites might encounter discussions of infectious disease on one page and neurological conditions on the next. The boundaries separating different illnesses seemed to dissolve, and very different medical problems were increasingly discussed within the same framework. And that framework revolved around these mysterious hidden causes like parasites, pathogens, toxins, infections. And so the explanations varied from community to community, but the underlying idea remained remarkably consistent. Illness was not what doctors believed it was. Something deeper and hidden was happening. It was a conspiracy. And according to movement. Leaders, MMS could address it. And for years, those ideas circulated through conferences and online communities without attracting sustained national attention until they collided with one of the most emotionally charged subjects imaginable, autism. So the claims of a cure for autism attracted journalists, advocacy organizations, physicians, regulators, and eventually law enforcement. And so this introduced thousands of new families to MMS. Many of those families weren't looking for controversy. They were looking for hope. I mean, that distinction becomes important when you start reading the stories that they told about themselves. I mean, they didn't think they were joining a movement. They were searching for help. I mean, one parent would hear about a conference from another parent, and someone at the conference would hear about a Facebook group, and someone in the Facebook group would recommend a website. The website had videos, and the videos led to books. And by the time families realized how far they traveled, they were no longer merely researching MMS. They were part of a community built around it. And increasingly, that community was being shaped by a man named Mark Greenon. Unlike Jim Humble, Mark Greenon wasn't selling the image of a lone explorer who stumbled into a medical breakthrough. He was a missionary, a pilot, a man who spent decades traveling through the Caribbean and South America doing evangelical work. By the time he encountered MMS, he already understood something that Jim Humble never seemed very interested in, and that was how to build a movement. In essence, Humble had a story and Greenon built a church around it. The first time many people encountered Greenon was through videos. He appeared seated in front of a camera, speaking directly to viewers with the confidence of someone who no longer considered the debate as open. There

Mark Greenon Builds A Church

SPEAKER_00 23:48

was very little hesitation in the way that he presented information. He didn't sound like a man weighing possibilities. He was delivering conclusions. And that certainty turned out to be one of his greatest assets. By the time viewers discovered the videos, many were already frustrated and they had spent years searching for treatments and become deeply skeptical of mainstream medicine. So many had grown accustomed to hearing phrases like more research is needed or we don't know. But Greenan offered something different. He offered certainty. Watching old videos now, it's difficult not to notice the contrast between his confidence and the complexity of the subjects that he was discussing. I mean, he was talking about diseases that occupied entire fields of medicine for decades, and he would just talk about them in straightforward terms. Problems that researchers continued struggling to understand were presented as though, well, they'd already been solved. And to supporters, this was refreshing. To critics, it was alarming, but either way, people were paying attention. And we all know the internet rewards attention. A person speaking with absolute certainty is often more compelling than someone carefully explaining uncertainty, even when the uncertain person is the more accurate one. So over time, Greenon's audience grew. His videos circulated through Facebook groups and online forums. Followers shared clips with friends and family members, and conference attendees returned home and recommended his presentations to others. And slow, slowly, the movement developed a recognizable cast of personalities, and Greenon was occupying center stage. But what made him different from many alternative health promoters was that he seemed interested in building something larger than an audience. And these signs appeared gradually. He started changing the language. Followers weren't simply discussing treatments anymore. Increasingly, they were discussing missions, ministries, and healing like a calling. Conferences felt less like product demonstrations and more like gatherings of people who believed they were participating in something important. The transformation wasn't obvious if you looked at any single moment, but it became more visible when viewed across the years. The conference became a network. The network became a community, the community became an identity. And identities have a way of hardening over time. For many followers, a criticism of MMS no longer felt like a criticism of a product. It was a criticism of a community that they were part of and they cared about. And that matters because communities can survive challenges that products can't. People stop buying products every day, but leaving a community is hard. You're leaving your friends, you're leaving a worldview that expand that explains years of your life. And that's harder still. So by the late 2000s, government agencies around the world began paying closer attention to MMS. Health authorities issued warnings, medical organizations raised concerns, and regulators increasingly described chlorine dioxide in stark terms, emphasizing its industrial uses and the risks associated with consuming it. And for many alternative health movements, that level of scrutiny is devastating. Their websites, you would see websites disappear, sales decline, followers move on to something, the next best thing, but that's not what happened here, which is really strange. Something, something else occurred. The movement adapted. One day, a person exploring the world of MMS might find themselves reading treatment protocols, and then the next day, they might discover Genesis 2 Church of Health and Healing, which started out as a website. And at first glance, the website looked surprisingly polished. Visitors encountered references to ministers, archbishops, healing missions, and spiritual service. This language blended health, religion, and community in ways that felt unusual, but not entirely unprecedented, because, as we know, America's always been fertile ground for organizations operating somewhere between spirituality and self-help. But still, there was something undeniably strange about a church whose

Genesis 2 Credentials And Community Pull

SPEAKER_00 27:48

central sacrament involved chlorine dioxide. I mean, this idea sounds so absurd when described in a sentence. It becomes easier to understand when viewed through the eyes of believers. By the time many followers arrived at Genesis 2, they'd already spent years hearing the same story, and they believed that they discovered something that was a treatment that was being unfairly suppressed, and that critics were ignoring the evidence, and people were suffering unnecessarily because important information was being withheld. The church didn't create those beliefs, but it inherited them and offered a structure to a person who had once been a follower who could now become a minister. Someone who spent years discussing MMS online could now feel part of a mission. Just a little side note here. If you're hearing the pitter-patter of rain, that's because it's raining very furiously, and I don't have a way to make it stop.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah, you know, nature's gonna nature. Honestly, it's kind of a nice little background while listening. So I like it. It's nature.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Oh, yes. I mean, I fall asleep to rain on sounds of rain on a tin roof. So this is rain on a on a what do you call siding? House sighting. All right. So the ordination process was remarkably simple. People could apply online, complete paperwork, pay a fee, of course, and receive credentials, identifying them as ministers of Genesis 2. From the outside, the process looked almost comically easy. And from the inside, it offered something that people found deeply appealing. Purpose, the chance to belong to something bigger than themselves, and the chance to help others and their children and to become part of a story. So thousands signed up. Some undoubtedly saw the church as a legal strategy, while others appeared to embrace it sincerely. Many probably existed somewhere in between, because human motivations are rarely as neat as journalists would like them to be. But what was clear is that the church grew. Videos from Genesis 2 events showed conference rooms filled with attentive audiences. Attendees sat shoulder to shoulder while speakers described recoveries, treatments, and experiences. Conversations continued in hallways long after the presentations ended. And as with any of these conferences, new friendships formed and people exchanged phone numbers, addresses, and stories. And again and again, former members would later describe the same feeling that they had found people who understood them. And whether those beliefs were correct almost is secondary when you're trying to understand why these kinds of movements survive. Communities often endure because they satisfy emotional needs as much as intellectual ones. And while all of this was happening, the movement itself continued expanding. What had once been a collection of websites and conferences was becoming international. Followers translated materials into multiple languages. Videos spread across continents and conferences appeared in new countries. Missionary style outreach programs emerged, and supporters spoke increasingly about bringing MMS to places where they believed it could make the greatest difference. And one of those places was Uganda. For believers, Uganda represented an opportunity, and for journalists, it represented a test. By the time journalists began looking closely at Uganda, the movement had already spent years telling stories about Africa. The continent occupied a special place in the mythology surrounding MMS, because part of that was that malaria occupied such a central role in Jim Humble's origin story. The tale of sick minors in South America had become the movement's creation myth, repeated so often that many followers knew it by heart. And whenever supporters wanted to demonstrate what MMS could supposedly do, they often returned to malaria. And nowhere was malaria more emotionally powerful than in the places where it remained a genuine threat. So videos began circulating online, showing church meetings, presentations, and treatment campaigns. In many of them, the setting looked strikingly ordinary. Community centers, churches, school buildings, open air gathering spaces filled with rows of plastic chairs. Local leaders introduced visitors to assembled crowds, and people listened attentively as speakers described the treatment that they claimed could address illnesses that had plagued communities for generations. Viewed without context, this footage is easily mistaken for a humanitarian outreach program, which is why the story is so difficult to evaluate from a distance because the people in the videos don't look like extremists or radicals. They look like, you know, your teacher, your parent, your neighbor, a volunteer. People that were genuinely convinced that they were participating in something important.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

But meanwhile, it's time for a okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Because we spent the last 30 minutes talking about chlorine dioxide. I thought we should answer a question that some listeners might be asking if people are drinking this stuff, what actually happens to the human body? I do need to clarify that MMS wasn't made from the same chemical found in a bottle of household bleach. Household bleach contains sodium hypochlorite. MMS uses sodium chloride, which produces chlorine dioxide when mixing with an acid. So they're different chemicals, but both are powerful oxidizing agents that are used for bleaching and disinfection rather than medications. According to toxicologists, chlorine dioxide is a powerful oxidizing agent. In industry, it's commonly used for bleaching paper products and treating water supplies. In

What Chlorine Dioxide Does To Bodies

SPEAKER_00 33:20

medicine, however, drinking concentrated chlorine dioxide is a very different matter. Health agencies around the world have reported adverse effects associated with ingestion, including severe vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, low blood pressure, and in some cases, acute liver injury and hemolysis, a condition where red blood cells break down faster than the body can replace them. One of the more interesting things that toxicologists point out is that some of these side effects can actually be misinterpreted by people who believe that a treatment is working. So if someone expects a cleanse, severe diarrhea might look like a detox situation. If someone expects parasites, then damaged tissue can be mistaken for parasites. If someone expects toxins leaving the body, illness itself can become evidence that the treatment's doing something.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So that's fascinating because people then can be looking at the exact same thing and reach completely different conclusions.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Mm-hmm. Exactly. That's one of the reasons healthcare providers emphasize controlled studies instead of relying exclusively on person personal experience. I mean, personal experience is important, but it's incredibly easy to misinterpret, especially when we're dealing with treatments that produce dramatic physical effects.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Well, thank you for sharing all this because when you first read about the chemicals in the beginning, I was picturing people drinking house bleach. So I have definitely learned more today about bleach than I ever expected I would. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah, it's even worse than house bleach, it's industrial bleach. Oh gosh. That's terrible. All right. Well, now back to our regularly scheduled International Bleach Church investigation.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

As you do. So in 2019, reporters from The Guardian began investigating some of the claims being made about MMS activities in Uganda. And like many people encountering the movement for the first time, they found themselves navigating a strange divide between certainty and evidence. In one reality, supporters described remarkable successes. They spoke about recoveries, treatments, and lives changed. They discussed chlorine dioxide as though it were a breakthrough, unfairly ignored by the rest of the world. In the other reality, medical experts continued expressing concern. Health authorities continued issuing warnings, and toxicologists continued pointing to the risks associated with ingesting chlorine dioxide. The gap between

Uganda Outreach And Media Investigations

SPEAKER_00 35:48

these two realities seems enormous, and yet participants on both sides were convinced they were looking at the same evidence. Supporters looked at a recovery and saw proof. Critics looked at the same story and wanted documentation. Supporters saw testimony and critics wanted evidence. Supporters trusted experience and critics trusted verification. As the investigation continued, another pattern became visible. The movement's leaders were becoming increasingly ambitious. What had once existed primarily as a collection of websites and conferences was evolving into something more organized. The church structure provided leadership and the online communities provided communication. The conferences provided recruitment and the international outreach programs provided visibility, and each piece reinforced the other. If someone encountered a video from Uganda online, that video would lead them to a conference, and the conference would lead them to a Facebook group, and the Facebook group would introduce them to Genesis 2. Genesis 2 could provide that community waiting to welcome them. The system had become remarkably effective. By the end of the 2010s, the movement appeared larger than ever. Its leaders had followers across multiple continents. The videos attracted audiences around the world, and the supporters viewed themselves not merely as users of a treatment, but participants in a mission. And then, just as the movement seemed to be reaching new heights, the world changed. In late 2019, news organizations began reporting on a cluster of mysterious pneumonia cases in China. At first, the reports seemed distance, another outbreak, another public health concern. Few people imagined how dramatically daily life was about to change. Amen. Within months, airports emptied, schools closed, hospitals filled with patients, entire cities fell silent as governments struggled to contain a virus that seemed to move faster than understanding could. And suddenly everyone was searching for answers. And in moments like that, certainty becomes a valuable commodity. And for years, Genesis 2 had their audience built by offering certainty.

COVID Panic And Miracle Claims

SPEAKER_00 37:57

They had the commodity, and now the entire world was hungry for it. And what happened next would bring Genesis 2 more attention than they'd ever received before. But it would also bring them federal investigators. The first months of the pandemic were defined by uncertainty. So looking back, it's easy to forget just how disorienting those early weeks felt. I mean, information was changing daily. News reports showed hospitals filling with patients. Public health officials struggled to answer questions about a virus they'd only recently begun studying. Grocery stores, shelves emptied. Flights were canceled. People were fighting over buying the last bit of toilet paper. I was gonna say toilet paper. Yeah. Schools closed and entire cities ground to a halt. For many people, the most difficult part wasn't the restrictions or the disruptions. It was the unknown. Because no one could say with certainty how long the pandemic would last. I remember Trump talking about how, you know, oh, by Easter or Mother, was it Easter or Mother's Day? He was like, Oh yeah, we'll be wrapped up by then. Remember? I don't really remember, but and I remember at the time thinking, oh gosh, that's a couple of months. That seems long.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Not only four years later. Yeah, that was just the beginning. Right, exactly. I don't remember how long things were locked down for anymore. It doesn't that it seems like, oh my god, that was so long ago, but really it wasn't that long ago. Well, we started getting locked down in March. Yeah. I had just barely got home from Washington. I was gonna be stuck there.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Yeah. I just remember because I bought a car like the day before lockdown. It's like I meant to have this Subaru. Thank you. All right. So, you know, nobody knew who was gonna be seriously ill, who's gonna die, when's life gonna return to normal? And so the uncertainty created this vacuum, and vacuums have a tendency to attract people that claim to have the answers. So across the internet, alternative explanations and miracle cures started multiplying immediately. Some were harmless and others were not. Social media platform became flooded with videos, testimonials, and theories promising certainty during a moment when certainty was in short supply. And Genesis 2.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Like the toilet paper.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Yeah. Speaking of supply, right? I don't know which was worse. No. Certainty or toilet paper. Certainty of toilet paper. Genesis 2 was perfectly positioned to take advantage of that moment. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe in early 2020, Genesis 2 found itself at the center of a public health crisis unlike anything encountered before. For years, church leaders had promoted chlorine dioxide as a treatment for a growing list of conditions, and now they were going to make similar claims about a novel virus that scientists still didn't quite understand. So rapidly, videos, webinars, and interviews appeared online. Mark Greenon and other church leaders promoted chlorine dioxide as a treatment and preventative measure for COVID-19. Despite repeated warnings from health authorities, the timing was significant. Millions of people were frightened, isolated, and searching for information. Hospitals were overwhelmed, and scientific understanding of the virus was evolving in real time, so misinformation flourished in the uncertainty. While most of the legal battle surrounding Genesis 2 played out in courtrooms, the real consequences were unfolding much farther from federal judges and prosecutors. In August 2020, a five-year-old boy in Argentina died after ingesting chlorine dioxide. His parents reportedly believed that the chemical could protect him from COVID-19. Authorities later described his death as consistent with chlorine dioxide poisoning and opened an investigation into the people promoting the substance. For critics of the MMS movement, the case represented the nightmare scenario they'd been warning about for years. And federal authorities finally took notice. In April 2020, the Department of Justice sought an injunction against Genesis 2 and several of its leaders, alleging that the organization was selling chlorine dioxide products and falsely marketing them as treatments for COVID-19 and other diseases. The government's position was straightforward. Chlorine dioxide was an industrial chemical being sold with unproven medical claims. Genesis 2 rejected that characterization, maintaining it was distributing a legitimate healing sacrament through a religious organization. A federal judge ordered the church to stop distributing the products and making disease treatment claims. But rather than backing down, Genesis 2 publicly challenged the government's actions.

DOJ Injunction Arrests And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Church leaders continued posting videos and communicating with followers online. According to prosecutors, the organization ignored court orders and continued distributing chlorine dioxide despite the injunction. The conflict quickly escalated beyond the realm of public health warnings and entered into the federal court system. What had once been a fringe alternative health movement was now the subject of an active legal battle during the largest public health emergency in generations. Investigators increasingly focused on Mark Renon and his sons, who had become some of the movement's most visible leaders. As legal pressure mounted, authorities learned that the members of the family had escaped to Colombia and then were living there. The case suddenly took on an international dimension involving cooperation between American and Colombian law enforcement. In July 2021, Colombian authorities arrested Mark Greenon and several members of his family at the request of the U.S. government. Images of the arrest stood in stark contrast to the movement's public image. For years, Genesis 2 had portrayed itself as a global healing ministry. Now its leaders were being escorted. The legal proceedings that followed centered on a fundamental cr question. What exactly was Genesis 2? Supporters viewed it as a church and a humanitarian ministry. Prosecutors described it as an organization that used religious language to market and distribute chlorine dioxide products. The case would ultimately result in convictions and prison sentences for members of the Greenon family. Yet the story didn't end with arrests. Like many movements built through online communities, Genesis II proved remarkably resilient. Supporters remained active on social media, websites continued to operate, and chlorine dioxide claims continued circulating long after the court cases concluded. The organization fragmented, adapted, and persisted in smaller forms. For former followers, the aftermath was often more complicated than a simple change of mind. Many describe leaving gradually rather than experiencing a single dramatic realization. Doubts accumulated over time. Predictions failed to materialize. Trusted leaders contradicted themselves, and legal filings revealed information that they had never countered when they were in the midst of the movement. So questions that once seemed easy to answer became harder and harder to ignore. For some, walking away meant losing more than a belief. It meant leaving behind friendships, support networks, and communities that had provided comfort during difficult periods of their lives. And perhaps that's why the Genesis 2 story remains so compelling. It wasn't simply about chlorine dioxide, it wasn't even primarily about chlorine dioxide. It was about how ideas spread, how communities form around shared beliefs, and how people searching for answers can find themselves drawn into movements that offer certainty when certainty is in short supply. So what began as a claim about a miracle cure eventually led to autism conferences, international missions, federal courtrooms, and arrests in another country. It's an unlikely story, but it reveals something deeply familiar about human nature. Our desire for hope, our search for belonging, and our willingness to believe extraordinary things when they promise solutions to ordinary fears.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

So are we all thinking it? We have to ask, was it a cult?

SPEAKER_00 46:22

That's a great question. And I think I probably should have put this in the correction section because when I referenced it the last episode, I said we're going to talk about a medical cult. It has several of the defining features of a cult, but not all of them. So I mean, it was a church, it was a health movement, and it had a number of features that cult experts often point to when they evaluate uh whether or not some an organization is a cult because they had a high level of control, right? And people didn't feel safe to leave the community. You couldn't speak against it. There was a lack of freedom. But it was mostly virtual or online. They weren't like present in this

Cult Adjacent Or Just Online

SPEAKER_00 47:02

organization, like physically. So that's what made it different. But I think it's it's it's somewhere adjacent, cult adjacent.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Yeah, I was gonna say, because okay, not in person, but maybe even more dangerous though, because your footprint is way larger.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

And it's capturing what is probably the strongest alliance and the strongest fears and emotions that people have on this planet, which is about their loved ones or their children, you know? Oh yeah. And they believe their children were being cheated out of a possible solution, and they're believing these thousands of I mean, who knows? These testimonials and stories and whether they were coincidental or whether they were. I mean, we just know that overall you can't drink bleach and and all and say that that cures all of these things, isn't particularly autism, which is like that one neurologist said is uh it's not a thing to cure. It's the way your brain works.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah. It's a neurological condition. So yeah. Like we you can't drink bleach and the bleach goes to target.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Your brain, your the bleach is like, well, let's just rearrange your personality and your neural networks.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

No, it yeah, it's like, oh, let me just go and bleach this section of your brain and we'll rewrite it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

And then it's a pretty clever bleach. I mean, oh man, and I don't want to be little the reverse.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I mean, I see I see how they fell down the rabbit hole. I mean. And that's something we talk about often too, is these groups of people that just will if there's one shred of hope, they will go do anything to get it.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Like I mentioned in the beginning, these are and we've all seen these. Well, we've all we us healthcare providers have seen these parents, the ones with the big binders and the tabs and the very careful questions and the they're so thorough, you know, and you can't blame the parents. They were looking for proof, and there's nothing more compelling than another family who can say they relate to you, they're dealing with similar issues, and those issues were re you know, resolved by the use of this thing, whatever that thing is, and in this case it's sodium chloride.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

So well, fascinating story. Great job covering it. Never heard of this before. Wow. I just am still thinking about like wrapping your mind around drinking bleach and thinking that's gonna help. But also, I guess I'm not in that state of hopelessness where I'm like, I will do anything.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

Yeah. And it's the enemas and the eye drops, and the uh it's a wonder we're not hearing more about, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

And they're like, look at my parasite rope. Like, what the no.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Oh, how horrific is that? That's part of someone's intestine, you know, or to some breakdown of tissue from this bleach, just literally eating them from inside. Oh my gosh. But you know what? Maybe it did inadvertently cure some incidental bacteria that was existing, norovirus or I which is a virus, but because it's bleach, I mean it kills bad stuff, but it also kills good stuff. So I I don't know. You could see where there might be some accidental cures of certain things because of the nature of the beast. Incidental, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Well, you guys don't drink bleach. Don't do it. Okay. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, so any hoossies. Shall we medical mishap? Yeah. After that story, I feel like I just need something to restore some faith in humanity. Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Yep. I mean, lucky for you, I have exactly the thing.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Oh, you do. Is it is it another church, Jenna?

SPEAKER_00 51:03

No churches, no bleach, no international in investigations. Just a listener who had a very unfortunate interaction with a specimen cup.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Oh, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Well, a specimen cup. You already know that's not gonna be good.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Right. That's why this is wonderful. All right, well, let's hear it. So this week's medical mishap comes from a listener that we'll call Sarah. Sarah writes, I was scheduled for routine

Medical Mishap The Specimen Cup Swap

SPEAKER_00 51:30

lab work and my doctor wanted a urine sample. The medical assistant handed me the specimen cup and directed me towards the restroom. So far, so good. The problem started when I got distracted. It had been a long week of Mondays. Oh, I feel you, sister. And I was ready for Friday to put an end to it. The restroom had one of those shelves above the toilet where patients can place their belongings. So I put my phone up there. I completed the sample, sealed the cup, popped it in the brown bag they gave me, washed my hands, and headed back into the hallway. A few minutes later, the lab tech called me up to the counter, looking extremely confused. Apparently, I sealed my phone in the bag that I gave her and walked away carrying the urine sample. No. Yeah. The technician reportedly absolutely not. The technician reportedly spent several seconds staring at a sealed iPhone before realizing something had gone very wrong.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Oh my God, no, stop. I'm I'm I'm wheezing.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Meanwhile, Sarah was in the waiting room cradling her cup of pee.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Oh my God. Sarah, no, you did not.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Oh, Sarah, no. She writes that it took an embarrassingly long time before she realized her mistake.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Honestly, that's that's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

The best part is she said she made eye contact with the she said she made eye contact with the technician while carrying the cup back across the waiting room. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Oh my god, there's no recovering from that. Sarah, are you okay?

SPEAKER_00 53:09

No, you have to move, Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Immediately, definitely different city, new identity, witness protection. Exactly. Gotta go. Oh yeah. Well, Sarah, thank you for your sacrifice because honestly, picturing you just scurrying across the lobby carrying your warm cup of tea just made my day.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

And thankfully, no phones were harmed in the making of the middle of this medical mishap.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah, just Sarah's dignity, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Mostly dignity, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

I I definitely thought that it would the phone was gonna fall in the toilet. But you know what? That really turned out a lot a lot better than that. So on that note, thank you all for tuning in and listening to Doctoring the Toilet.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Amanda, what can our listeners expect to hear next week?

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Well, next week we're gonna cover I don't I have two cases I'm going in between, so I'm not sure which one I'm gonna pick yet. Okay. So I can't tell you. It'll be good. It's either gonna be about fentanyl or a shisty surgeon. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Well, I mean, yeah. Okay, yeah. So until then, y'all, don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring

Next Week Tease And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 54:30

the Truth wherever you enjoy podcasts for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Because trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthe truth at buzzsprout.com. Email us your own story ideas, medical mishaps, and comments at Doctoringthe Truth at Gmail. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and Facebook at DoctoringTheTruth. We're on TikTok at Doctoring the Truth and at oddpod, which I'm behind on socials. Y'all, sorry about it, new mama. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe and stay soft.