Science
- Backers of the QAnon conspiracy are recommending drinking bleach as a cure against the deadly Wuhan coronavirus from China.
- Members of a fringe medical movement have long recommended drinking toxic bleach - which they call "Miracle Mineral Solution" - as a cure for a raft of otherwise incurable illnesses.
- But medical authorities, including the US Food and Drugs Administration, have warned that consuming the bleach causes severe nausea, vomiting, and can even be fatal.
- This isn't the first time the far-right political conspiracy movement and fringe medical movement have banded together. They have a shared hostility to "big pharma" and vaccinations policies.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Prominent backers of the QAnon conspiracy are advocating drinking bleac has a cure against the deadly Wuhan coronavirus that has spread from China, The Daily Beast reported.
For years a fringe medical movement has advocated drinking bleach - which they call Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) - as a cure for potentially fatal illnesses, including cancer, malaria and AIDS.
The US Food and Drugs Administration has warned that MMS is actually made up of the toxic acid chlorine dioxide, and that drinking the bleach causes "severe vomiting" and "acute liver failure."
Drinking the bleach has so far been connected to two deaths, as Business Insider reported last year.
According to the Beast, the MMS movement has now converged with another shadowy group of online-based conspiracy theorists - the QAnon movement, who believe President Donald Trump is working to dismantle a cabal of child abusers containing top Democrats and Hollywood stars.
A recent video showed Jordan Sather, a prominent QAnon and MMS promoter, telling his audience: "I'm going to have to get home, and MMS the whole state," referring to the coronavirus, according to the Beast.
"MMS the whole shit out of everything."
A popular QAnon Twitter account pushed bottles of MMS spray to ward off the coronavirus infections, linking to a website that advocates spraying the toxic bleach into the mouth and onto the face, the Beast reported.
Other QAnon conspiracists have also sought to link the spread of a the virus with a plot to depopulate the world hatched by Bill and Melinda Gates, the Beast said.
This is one of a number of conspiracies, rumors, and pieces of misinformation that have swirled around the virus as it began to spread.
Facebook and Twitter are currently working to combat the spread of viral misinformation about the infection, like that Oregano Oil could help cure it. Last November, YouTube banned videos promoting MMS after Business Insider exposed the practise.
This QAnon and MMS push is not the first time that members of a far-right conspiracist movement have formed an alliance with members of a fringe medical movement. They have a shared hostility toward "big pharma" and vaccinations policies.
The far-right radio show Infowars and its host, Alex Jones, have long promoted discredited and unproven quack remedies alongside conspiracies about liberal and scientific elites.