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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBleach enemas for kids, to treat autism. What. The. Fuck...
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/06/18/no-matter-how-often-i-read-about-treatments-like-this-i-still-cant-believe-parents-actually-subject-their-children-to-them/Its been a while since Ive written about MMS. You remember MMS, dont you? Its an abbreviation for miracle mineral solution, a solution first promoted by a man who is inaptly named Jim Humble. Basically, as Ive described in multiple blog posts, MMS is bleach, specifically chlorine dioxide (ClO2). I first became acutely aware of it a little more than a year ago, when I noticed that the antivaccine autism biomed quackfest known as Autism One featured a talk by a woman named Kerri Rivera, who advocated using MMS to bleach autism away, as I put it at the time. Of course, Jim Humble doesnt limit his use of MMS to just autism, but, like all good cranks, touts it as a near universal cure-all that is good for just about anything that ails you. So whats so bad about using it for autism?
What caught my eye (and horrified me to think about it) was that Kerri Rivera was advocating the use of MMS enemas to treat autism. Yes, Kerri Rivera advocated subjecting autistic children to bleach enemas and has made videos touting this as a biomedical treatment for autism. As I noted back then, even worse (if that were possible), Rivera advocated fever therapy and characterized fevers after bleach enemas to be a good thing, a sign that the treatment is working, much as Jim Humble gives MMS to treat adults in increasing doses until they start to feel ill. (Personally, as a physician, I would be very concerned at a child becoming febrile after having ingested bleach or had it shot up his rectum. Not Kerri Rivera, apparently.) Indeed, Rivera even exults about how much she loves fever therapy and how it wakes up the immune system. In addition to the bleach enemas, she recommends a 72-2? protocol that involves making children drink dilute bleach every two hours for 72 hours.
If theres one thing that Kerri Rivera appears to do that deceives parents (besides the rather obvious claim she makes that ingesting bleach or making enemas out of it will do anything but risk potential poisoning and injury to the rectum and the lining of the colon) is the claim that MMS eliminates parasites. Much as advocates of colon cleanses claim that whats coming out represents years of accumulated waste thats making you sick or, even more appropriately, as advocates of liver flushes try to convince their unwitting marks that the little lumps of saponified oil that come through the stool due to the cleanse are in actuality gallstones being flushed out of the liver. advocates of bleach enemas, it would appear, claim that what comes out in the stool are parasites and worms. I learned this from a particularly horrifying blog I came across a while back, thanks to a reader, known as A Drop At a Time: The CD Journey of a Child With Autism (the CD part stands for chlorine dioxide). Its the story of a mother subjecting her child to MMS treatments, including both oral ingestion of MMS and MMS enemas.
More at link.
Sid
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)A bleach enema?
alittlelark
(18,890 posts)It is a documentary sent back from the future as a warning.
cali
(114,904 posts)but it's abuse when you do it to a kid.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,704 posts)Anyone doing that, or advocating doing that, should be in trouble with the law.
I am sickened to read this.
indeed.
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)why aren't these people in jail for advocating child abuse
steve2470
(37,457 posts)in case I have to.
Warpy
(111,342 posts)They perform it on each other, saying it "opens the third eye."
I am not making this up.
You can never plumb the depths of human lunacy. The loonies just keep on digging.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)eta: Ok, I assumed wrongly. They ARE serious. WTF.
Warpy
(111,342 posts)for the most part, appearing only sporadically at some of the weirder conventions.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)to start their day.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)They were Seventh Day Adventists.
Quakers started the oats.
Response to jberryhill (Reply #8)
Luminous Animal This message was self-deleted by its author.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There's nothing weirder than a thread where someone had an amusing typo or whatever, and then went back and fixed it post-mirth.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)HappyMe
(20,277 posts)children have to do with cereal?
niyad
(113,570 posts)2Design
(9,099 posts)read up on the facts - it is not bleach
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)While "Clorox" is a dilute sodium hypochlorite bleach, chorine dioxide is a bleach used in paper manufacturing.
The word "bleach" does not refer to any specific chemical.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)JoeyT
(6,785 posts)The facts are against you on this one. It isn't Clorox, or bleach for clothes, but it is bleach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_dioxide#Bleaching
snooper2
(30,151 posts)does it burn? LOL
zappaman
(20,606 posts)WTF???
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)and why we should all refuse to allow dangerous medical woo to be posted unopposed at DU.
Sid
SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)desperate people doing desperate things
thanks for posting this sid
now I am going to do something I never would have predicted
im going up and reccing a sid dithers post
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)That mother is seriously sick.
Rex
(65,616 posts)In the final analysis.
mike_c
(36,281 posts)Pigs pirouette in the air.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)This is horrifying.