Bleached out

4 Florida men sentenced for selling covid “cures”

Jim Humble left Scientology because he thought he was Jesus. Well, he believed his touch heals, akin to the Christian savior. Not only his touch, however. Chlorine dioxide also heals.

Industrial bleach, that is.

Humble’s origin story is quite something, worth sharing in full, as it represents much of the thinking behind the naturalistic fallacy that leads to conspirituality:

I want to tell you about a breakthrough that can save your life, or the life of a loved one. In 1996, while on a gold mining expedition in South America, I discovered that chlorine dioxide quickly eradicates malaria. Since that time, it has proven to restore partial or full health to hundreds of thousands of people suffering from a wide range of disease, including cancer, diabetes, hepatitis A, B, C, Lyme disease, MRSA, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, HIV/AIDS, malaria, autism, infections of all kinds, arthritis, high cholesterol, acid reflux, kidney or liver diseases, aches and pains, allergies, urinary tract infections, digestive problems, high blood pressure, obesity, parasites, tumors and cysts, depression, sinus problems, eye disease, ear infections, dengue fever, skin problems, dental issues, problems with prostate (high PSA), erectile dysfunction and the list goes on. This is by far not a comprehensive list. I know it sounds too good to be true, but according to feedback I have received over the last 20 years, I think it’s safe to say MMS has the potential to overcome most diseases known to mankind.

MMS, Miracle Mineral Supplement, more commonly known as Miracle Mineral Solution. That’s what thousands of Amazon sellers dub their small bottles of bleach, sold to do any of the things Humble lists above, or more. The imagination is limitless, and so are health claims attributed to MMS.

Humble qualifies the above by assuring the reader that MMS doesn’t cure disease—that would be illegal!—but it kills pathogens and “destroys poisons.” MMS “lines things up” so the body can heal thyself, another convenient conspiritualist leap of logic used to justify selling untested products.

Except MMS doesn’t only kill poisons. It also kills people. And cripples them. Makes them vomit and shit violently. You never really know what’s going to happen. The dose makes the poison, and in any amount, drinking bleach won’t heal a thing—but very well may destroy your insides.

While Humble’s revelation came in 1996, it took an American president advising citizens to drink bleach to combat Covid for sales of MMS to skyrocket. Enter the Grenon family, four Florida men, who began pulling in $120,000 a month selling MMS online. After their profit margin broke a million, the government stepped in. They were finally sentenced to prison sentences—two twelve-and-a-half years, the other two roughly five years—for illegally selling bleach as a medication. Even after they were initially arrested, the Grenons still sold MMS from jail.

Chlorine dioxide has many uses, including to fumigate fruits to prevent molds and yeast, disinfect poultry, eradicate bedbugs, and as a general oxidizer and disinfectant, for surfaces and air. This isn’t how it’s increasingly being used in the alternative world known as wellness land, however.

MMS is used by people swayed by online medical misinformation forums, including as a “cure” for autism, because a percentage of our population still believes the spectrum is something to be “fixed.” And so confused parents dosed their children with industrial bleach after reading directions in Facebook groups, or stumbling on Humble’s site, or any of the thousands of grifters who’ve run with Humble’s directions for mixing MMS at home.

MMS has been around for decades, but Covid put it front and center. People drank bleach instead of getting a vaccine, and those four Florida men, the Grenons, pushed that idea hard, and profited hard. Until they didn’t. 

The Grenons stole another idea from Humble: set up the racket as a church to escape those pesky regulations that governing bodies like to impose so that citizens don’t do things like drink bleach.

Humble used a rather strange analogy to declare spiritual sovereignty: 

Look at the Catholics. Their priests have been molesting women and children for centuries and the governments have not been able to stop it. If handled properly a church can protect us from vaccinations that we don't want, from forced insurance, and from many things that a government might want to use to oppress us.

The Grenons took Humble at his word, founding the Genesis II Church of Healing in order to sell bleach as medicine. No religion involved—Mark Grenon told the court his only interest was the “sacrament,” which is how MMS is framed to avoid regulations. Once caught, the family told the court it was going to go Waco if the government tried to stop their operation. 

But stop it they did and, thankfully, so far, no guns.

The problem of MMS hasn’t disappeared, however, since Humble open sourced it on his website long ago. Gen Z TikTokers sprinkle bleach in their morning glass of water, swearing it makes their skin brighter and boosts their immune system. Humble’s influence is widespread, and in his bullet point list of claims, this leaps out: 

Pharmaceutical drugs almost exclusively treat symptoms of diseases and not the cause of the diseases. This is a way of keeping people sick and dependent on drugs.

And there’s the key to why the Grenons made a million dollars selling bleach, why Gen Z conspiritualists swear MMS is a skin tonic, and why Humble continues to preach the gospel of chlorine dioxide, which is what I really want to investigate.