By 5.11.16

While it would be nice to if there was one product that cures anything and everything that ails you, bleach is not that miracle solution. And yet, people keep selling something called “Miracle Mineral Solution,” an industrial chemical unfit for human consumption, as a treatment for a slew of complaints from asthma to HIV. The most recent example is in Texas, where a new complaint accuses a company of shilling a concoction that it claims “is able to overcome most diseases known to mankind.”

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan’s office filed a complaint [PDF] on behalf of Texas against Shane Hawkins, a man doing business as the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, Chapter #119, accusing him of selling MMS as a cure for cancer, diabetes, autism, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hepatitis, and, obviously, the common cold.

According to the Food & Drug Administration, MMS “is a solution of sodium chlorite mixed with an activator such as an acid like citric acid.” When those two chemicals are mixed, they create chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleaching agent.

The suit seeks to “stop the promotion and distribution” of Miracle Mineral Solution, calling it “a fraudulent medical treatment.”

Hawkins and his promoters claimed that “‘hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved’ with MMS, coupled with questionable testimonials from some of the ‘20,000,000’ users of MMS,” Ryan says in the complaint.

While chlorine dioxide can be used as water purifier when used in small amounts, the doses Hawkins is peddling “can cause severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and can be life-threatening.”

Hawkins sold the bleach at “seminars” or “sacraments” in Houston hotels, requiring a $500 cash “donation” at the door. For that price you get a church membership for a year and a “Reverend Certificate,” Texas says.

“Those who finish the course are promised that they will know ‘how to restore health from 95% of the diseases of mankind’ and may ‘legally’ use ‘Dr.’ as a prefix to their name,” the prosecutor says, citing promos for the church, which “has no known affiliation with any legitimate religious organization,” the complaint says.

He’s been making the rounds for at least a year, Ryan says.

“This product is nothing but an industrial bleach concoction that poses a serious health risk to Harris County residents,” Ryan said in a statement. “The promoter’s claim that this product can solve practically every ailment known to man is not only ridiculous but dangerous to the persons who use it.”

The lawsuit contends that Hawkins violated Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act because of the fraudulent claims about MMS and by promoting, manufacturing and selling MMS, a drug that is not legally approved as safe and effective for use.

The FDA has been warning consumers away from this stuff since 2010, but new sellers keep popping up.

Last year, a federal court in Washington state sentenced Louis Daniel Smith — a Spokane man who ran an online business called Project GreenLife that also sold a product dubbed Miracle Mineral Solution — to 51 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.

(h/t Courthouse News)