Daniel has written a couple of articles about “Miracle Spring Water” in the past, the first one pointing out the absurdity of its claims and the second one expressing sorrow for the poor, desperate people taken in by it.
I don’t know if this is the same stuff that Daniel wrote about, but the charlatanism and sheer horribleness of it is at least as bad. It makes some incredible claims, including:
“…tests conducted by the Malawi government produced… 99% cure results. Over 60% of the AIDS victims that were treated in Uganda were well in 3 days, with 98% well within one month. More than 90% of the malaria victims were well in 4 to 8 hours. Dozens of other diseases were successfully treated and can be controlled with this new mineral supplement. It also works with colds, flu, pneumonia, sore throats, warts, mouth sores, and even abscessed teeth (it’s the only thing that controls and cures abscessed teeth).”
What is this substance, you ask? Bleach. Strong, chlorine-based bleach. I’m not kidding.
Slight digression: For those of you who don’t know, I live in Wales. Wales is theoretically a principality and a nation in its own right, but in reality is a rural suburb of England where people have suspiciously tangled family trees and find sheep to be more entertaining than they should.
Imagine my (pleasant) surprise to discover that “Miracle Mineral Solution” is to be banned in the UK thanks to the efforts of a 15 year-old Welsh boy!
“A SCHOOLBOY’S campaign to ban a “miracle” health drink was hailed yesterday by UK Government officials after it was taken off sale in Britain.
Rhys Morgan, 15, highlighted the dangers of Miracle Mineral Solution to trading standards officials.
And the Food Standards Agency (FSA) yesterday said it had warned other European countries about it after Rhys’ campaign.”
A fiteeen year old from Wales named Rhys Morgan might be responsible for getting a dangerous snake-oil banned in all of Europe. If I was him, I’d be damned proud – and I can’t help feeling a little pleased that the future of scepticism in Wales seems to be in good hands.
Wait. They were selling BLEACH as something to be consumed??? How the hell did they get away with selling a POISON as a “medicine”?
Maybe they call it “concentrated homeopathy.”
Substances aren’t pre-emptively banned over here. You can sell pretty much anything as an alternative health product (provided you’re willing to take the consequences of course).
Ew.
Love your new picture :D
Speaking of Wales, I heard recently that Welsh farmers have found a new usage for sheep.
Wool.
They’ll be eating them next.
oh, they´re eating them.
But seriously, I always hate these types of people. They know very well that it doesn’t work, but make these false claims so poor superstitious people will fall for it and keep coming back for more. It’s awful because the punters lap it up.
I’ve seen these things when I lived abroad when I was younger. Even after pointing out that some shady product was a bunch of bullshit, the people who were being scammed would defend it vigorously. It made me a little sickened.
Good on this young man for preventing it from arriving in Britain.
It must be in a fairly low concentration, or people would recognize the smell as soon as the bottle was opened. Yeah, I’ll bet it does kill bacteria.
My friends sister-in-law gave my sister who has terminal cancer a bottle of this and started telling my sister how effective it is for killing cancer cells and a helping with everything. I took the bottle (and kept it). When I saw that the contents are nothing but distilled water and 28% sodium chlorite I became concerned and opened the bottle to smell it. It smelled strongly of chlorine. Thank God my sister is not sick enough to believe this solution will help her. The only thing this mms is good for is to disinfect water, and I don’t believe I will use it even for that. The directions say to to always add 5 times as much fresh lemon or lime juice or the 10% citric acid solution as the number of drops of mms. then wait 3 minutes before drinking. Is this just to hide the taste and smell or the chlorine?
Good for young Master Morgan, and good for the UK.
The state put in chlorine in the water (safe levels) to combat bacterial growth because of flooding.
Just turning on the faucet was enough to make our noses wrinkle.
How could anyone drink bleach???
Sorry but no sympathy for the drinkers. Maybe I’m weird (OK I am!) but even the medicine from a doctor I don’t trust. The first thing I do is look up any medicine on the net looking for any problems then research what the medicine does and any side effects. I triple check any alt-meds. Before the Homeopathic thing hit the internet, I knew they were NOTHING cuz when my wife tried some I took the pills into the lab and had them analyzed and found SUGAR and simple organics. Once I found what 12C meant I then really understood their BOGUS claims.
WHY would anyone take the word of anyone else when research into the product is so easy?
Just a simple google or a trip to the library.
The only real sin is stupidity and the price is usual very final.
Here is the website that sells this stuff- with a terrifying photo (supposedly at the “Life Link Medical Center in Kampala, Uganda” of a mother about to feed it to her baby, with “Jim Humble” the ‘author” of this drink looking on.)
http://www.miraclemineral.org/
“Jim Humble discovered a simple health drink cure for malaria in South America during a prospecting venture. When he returned from the prospecting trip he worked on the health drink formula for several years sending it to friends in Africa who were able to use it in the field. Eventually a missionary group invited him to Africa where he personally treated over 2000 malaria victims and those he trained while there treated over 75,000 malaria cases.
The formula was a simple health drink that had already been used for years for other reasons. Jim drastically improved the effectiveness by adding a few drops of vinegar to the drink. Since that time thousands of cases of many different diseases have been treated with complete success.
Jim brought the treatment to the world. His book not only gives complete details of his work, but it also has a chapter, written by Dr. Hesselink, listing over 160 scientific papers describing more than 100,000 scientific tests using essentially the same formula that Jim used and still uses. These tests verify all of Jim’s basic concepts covering mostly data concerning malaria.”
and it oes on…
The UK based Righteous Indignation podcast just recently had 2 episodes dedicated mostly to this topic. The first episode interviewed Rhys (EP. 67), and the second one interviewed the “inventor” of MSS, Jim Humble (Ep.68) Very informative and insightful.
Their main site is http://www.ripodcast.co.uk/
Well Custador, at least we can agree that this is where we should draw the line for free speech. When someone is flat-out lying and the consequences are KILLING PEOPLE, it damn well better be banned! These people are disgusting wastes of life.
And bravo to the kid. I’ve always said people don’t give teens enough credit.
It is the same people that get so scared about fluorinated water that drinks bleach for fun!
Put fluoridated water in the alt med section of the chemist´s and they´ll drink it.
Here´s the Skeptic´s Guide podcast which features an interview with Rhys.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=265
Stay tuned for his description of a Crohn´s sufferer being encouraged to continue to drink bleach even when it seems clear that he is suffering badly from its effects.
They’ve really claimed that this product can cure AIDS? Admittedly, after drinking half a pint of it, AIDS is probably the least of your worries.
My wife and I are at TAM London and have just seen Rhys receive the award for Outstanding Contribution to the Skeptic Movement (grassroots category) from The Amazing Randi himself…..This 15 year old kid got a Standing O from everyone in the room. A privilege that only Randi himself had previously received despite the presence of Richard Dawkins and other illunimaries.
The award ceremony at TAM London was very moving. Rhys was understandably overcome at the sight of about a thousand people standing and clapping his achievement as well as his courage. The linked article doesn’t tell the full story. Rhys persisted in his skepticism despite receiving considerable abuse on forums etc. from other Crohn’s disease sufferers. They didn’t want their false hope taken away and – despicably – they shot the messenger. Admirably, Rhys wasn’t discouraged and went on to make this remarkable achievement. The standing ovation was very well deserved.
The winner of the other category (I think it was the ‘professional’ category… Mike?) was Ben Goldacre, who I think has been mentioned here a few times. Ben is also very deserving of the award: he’s one of the most hardworking and enthusiastic skeptics I’ve ever encountered.
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