A Florida man and his three sons are accused of marketing and selling thousands of bottles of bleach as a "miracle cure" for Covid and other illnesses, federal prosecutors said.
All four men, of Bradenton, Florida, are accused of selling more than $1 million (£719,775) of their “Miracle Mineral Solution” (MMS), a dangerous industrial bleach solution.
In the indictment on Friday, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said the men — Mark Grenon, 62; Jonathan Grenon, 34; Jordan Grenon, 26; and Joseph Grenon, 32 — fraudulently marketed and sold the “miracle cure” through a “non-religious” church in Southern Florida.
It contained a solution of sodium chlorite and water that when ingested orally, turns into chlorine dioxide, a strong bleach used in industrial water treatments or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper.
The solution was advertised as a cure for Covid, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, autism, malaria, hepatitis, Parkinson’s, herpes, HIV/AIDS, and other serious medical conditions, according to the court filing.
On Friday, the four men were also accused of violating a court order prohibiting the marketing and selling of the MMS product through the Genesis II Church of Healing in another case from July 2020.
It followed a raid on the backyard of their Bradenton family home by officers from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who seized thousands of bottles of the solution — and prohibited it being sold.
Instead, the Grenons are accused of continuing to sell tens of thousands of bottles of the bleach solution as a cure for Covid through the “non religious” church — allegedly to avoid detection from the FDA.
If they are convicted, all four face a life sentence for the marketing and selling of the “miracle cure”, and for being in contempt of court.
Two of the men, Jonathan and Jordan Grenon, were detained before their re-arraignment on Monday, according to the court filing, and were first arrested in July.
The FDA warned Americans last year against ingesting bleach following remarks by former US president Donald Trump about the ingestion of “bleach” as a treatment for Covid, which were widely criticised by medical professionals.
The Grenons and the Church of Healing have allegedly sold a bleach solution as a “miracle cure” for illnesses for a number of years.
