Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Descending into a howling vortex of madness and misinformation

Nothing to do with US politics, but rather the result of googling "Miracle Mineral Supplement" + Morgellons.

A lot of people are convinced that MMS will cure them of everything from cancer and AIDS to vague malaises and delusional skin disorders.
Painting of Morgellons courtesy of Wols. See how the MMS is forcing the parasitic fibres out of the patient's body!

MMS, we learn, is industrial bleach (sodium chlorite solution) with acid added to trigger the release of chlorine dioxide. You are encouraged to drink it mixed with water, or add some to a hot bath to open your skin pores so it is absorbed directly into the plasma, or inject it. If it makes you throw up or purge blood, never fear, that is a sign that the bleach is helping your body rid itself of pathogens and poisons.*

'Too simple to be true,' you may well think, but that's what the doctors want you to think. The MMS clientele are already convinced that the medical mafia are suppressing easy cures for their conditions in order to sell them expensive drugs (when they aren't trying to suppress the very reality of the customers' conditions), and from that perspective the simplicity of MMS makes its effectiveness all the more plausible, by reinforcing the sense that doctors are perfidious.**

Also, colloidal silver. And dimethyl sulfoxide. DMSO is touted for its powerful anti-oxidant properties; thus it makes sense to combine it with MMS, which is touted as a powerful oxidant.

So, a more responsible blogger wants to know, who are these bleach drinkers? Many of them are clearly one chromosome short of a genotype, and they are searching for a physical cure for problems that are far from physical. Here's some people complaining, with no awareness of a possible connection, that they are also afflicted with OCD. But MMS is also popular among support groups for real conditions.

Have there always been this many people whose bullshit detectors are so mis-tuned that they are eager to poison themselves to cure fictitious diseases? Is it just the effect of the Innertubes, letting them find one another for mutual encouragement?

If a tree falls over in the forest and there is no-one to hear, not only does it make a sound, it goes straight onto the WWW and blogs about the experience, while other trees reply with messages about new miracle cures for falling over that the medical establishment doesn't want us to know.
------------------------------------
* If you are self-medicating with bleach to cure cancer, the theory is that you should be able to increase your tolerance with time -- from (say) an initial tolerance of 6 drops in a glass of water before vomiting blood, to (say) 12. Apparently that's a sign that the cancer is regressing. If you can't increase the amount, that's a sign that the cancer is fighting back. Thus much of the discussion and the literature from the supplier is on ways to trick your body and overcome the bloody-vomit threshold. If you're not sure whether you're dying of cancer and distrust your doctor's assurances that you aren't, Jim helpfully links to a website where you can test yourself for only $165.

** But given the simplicity of MMS, what is to stop unscrupulous scumbags and scammers from ripping off the idea from its discover Jim Humble, and selling their own versions rather than signing up with Jim's operation as legitimate franchises? Well, nothing, but as Jim assures us on one of his many websites,
what sets him apart from the competition is that he's the only person willing to make illegal claims about his products:
PLEASE understand that legally in the US and most countries suppliers can only claim MMS purifies water. I am the only person who claims other wise.

21 comments:

Another Kiwi said...

Dear Sir I have injected the Chlorite into my Plasma Tv and frankly, bloody vomitting is the least of it.
Sir

M. Bouffant said...

Criminy, thought it was going to be more on the Minerals Management Service. Fortunately, the opening sentence convinced me otherwise.

I am thinking that rather than discouraging them, you should encourage these people to consume more bleach, hydrogen peroxide, & maybe anti-freeze. An Anti-Morgellons Cocktail.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

What if the fibers are beneficial photosynthetic symbionts, should the hosts be drinking pee instead?

Smut Clyde said...

you should encourage these people to consume more bleach, hydrogen peroxide, & maybe anti-freeze.

In the experience of a friend, the usual treatment for someone who consumed antifreeze is to strap them down to a gurney with an IV spike in the elbow and keep them as pissed as a skunk for a week on IV ethanol.* How much more persuasion do people want?

* That way the microsomal metabolic pathways in the liver and the retina, which would otherwise turn the glycol into some neurotoxic aldehyde which I can't be arsed looking up, are monopolised by the ethanol while the glycol makes its way out of the body through the lungs & kidneys.

Smut Clyde said...

should the hosts be drinking pee instead?

Well obviously the hosts should be drinking pee whether or not the fibres are photosynthetic symbionts, but I am not a Herr Doktor, no wait.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Have there always been this many people whose bullshit detectors are so mis-tuned that they are eager to poison themselves to cure fictitious diseases?

I thought you said this had nothing to do with US politics?

P.S. Hair Doktor, heal thyself!
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

geez, we better send an advance arm of the Zombocalypse Strike Team to eat their brains before they make them useless.

Unless, of course, they've just been reading Sadly, No. Seems to be a lot of brain bleach use over there.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

they should also, however, look into eating lead paint chips as a brain booster and sprinkling asbestos dust on their breakfast cereals to combat lung diseases.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

should the hosts be drinking pee instead?

well, THAT comment ought to increase your page hits.

Jennifer said...

thunder stole my comment... I thought that was fish's job. Has thunder stolen fish's job??

they should also, however, look into eating lead paint chips as a brain booster and sprinkling asbestos dust on their breakfast cereals to combat lung diseases.

Digesting PCBs works better. Actually, coating yourself in plastic works better.

Substance McGravitas said...

Well, to a cancer patient who has already been ingesting poison in an effort to kill the cancer before the body gets killed, MMS is not too far off the track in a magical-thinking sense. On the other hand, kitty here apparently has NO health problems...

Jennifer said...

OT- not that we don't find posts about Bleachtinis to be entertaining, but when do we get some more AK poems? Hmmm??

Willy said...

Glycol makes kidneys go "POP!"

fish said...

Actually, coating yourself in plastic works better.

again increasing page hits. Now combine this with the peeing...

mikey said...

PLEASE understand that legally in the US and most countries suppliers can only claim MMS purifies water. I am the only person who claims other wise.

Dead giveaway alert! Note the usage in the final word. It's NOT 'otherwise', it's 'other wise', or something OTHER than wisdom. They're pulling a Rumsfeld, telling you you're stupid for listening to them, and laughing because you're TOO STUPID to notice what they're saying...

Smut Clyde said...

to a cancer patient who has already been ingesting poison in an effort to kill the cancer before the body gets killed, MMS is not too far off the track in a magical-thinking sense.

There's definitely a oncological cargo-cult mentality at work in the discussion boards. Lots of sciency buzzwords (heavy metals! Mitochondria!) and pseudo-clinical talk of drug cocktails (DMSO + colloidal silver + MMS + homeopathy tincture) and IV perfusions. They want the aura of white-coated knowledge that goes with oncology, without the admission of fallibility, or the brutal side-effects, or the burden of being sick in the first place.

kitty here apparently has NO health problems...

When I find myself sympathising with these people, I turn to the pages where Jim Humble and his fans discuss the appropriate dose to give to infants and toddlers.

Smut Clyde said...

Fortunately, the 1938 regulations and the diligent efforts of the FDA official, Dr. Francis Kelsey, prevented the marketing of thalidomide in the United States [34]. Most of this tragedy was confined to Europe.

I was thinking of that story a few months ago, when some glibertarian pundit was inveighing against the existence of the FDA (since market forces on their own are incentive enough for companies to check their drugs for lethal self-effects). She reckoned that the FDA should not get any credit for keeping thalidomide off the US market, which instead was the result of bureaucratic obstructionism.

It was the usual attempt to get as many things wrong as possible in the shortest possible space, and I thought at the time, Why didn't she ask Dr Kelsey? (who answers e-mails).

Happy 96th birthday, Francie, also.

Jennifer said...

When I find myself sympathising with these people, I turn to the pages where Jim Humble and his fans discuss the appropriate dose to give to infants and toddlers.

:0!!!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Jim Humble and his fans discuss the appropriate dose to give to infants and toddlers.

fuckers. THOSE are the people who need shotguns to the head, not zombizzles.

Smut Clyde said...

My next band is going to be called "Matchbox Sign".

NutellaonToast said...

I got some buddies and we all drink bleach
You know we practice
what we preach

We're not bunch of frat boys, drunk on beers
or a stoned bunch of hippies with no careers

....

Bleach keeps you young, so I been told
Cause no one who drinks it lives to grown old