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.

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* 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.