| In December, I logged on to the popular internet arts and crafts marketplace Etsy, and ordered something you might not expect to find among the handmade Swedish clogs and ceramics: a deadly drug.
The drug in question was Miracle Mineral Solution, or MMS, a potion marketed as a cure-all that during the pandemic went viral for both treating and preventing Covid. It comes in two parts: one part sodium chloride, and one part acid. When combined, the mixture becomes chlorine dioxide. Chlorine dioxide is bleach. And bleach is toxic and sometimes deadly. "It is designed to kill bacteria, pathogens, germs," Richard Parsons, a toxicologist at King's College London, told me. "It will do that to human tissue." For over a decade, the Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers about Miracle Mineral Solution. As demand for it shot up during the pandemic — thanks in part to Donald Trump — regulators doubled down on efforts to quash its sales. In 2020, 4% of Americans reported drinking or gargling diluted bleach, according to a CDC poll of about 500 online participants. That year, some of the biggest sellers of MMS were arrested— a man named Mark Grenon and his three sons, who started a church in an attempt to sell the stuff without attracting regulatory scrutiny. The rise and fall of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing is the subject of Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure, a new podcast by Bloomberg, Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment that is hosted by me. But the fall of the Grenons didn't do much to stem the tide of MMS sales. Etsy, eBay and Poshmark removed MMS listings from their site after being contacted by Bloomberg News, citing violations of company policies. But it's still for sale on Amazon. And, more than likely, it won't be long before it's for sale elsewhere, as well. — Kristen V. Brown | 
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