Four members of a Florida family were convicted Wednesday of selling a toxic industrial bleach as a fake Covid-19 cure through their online church.

A federal jury in Miami found Mark Grenon, 65, and his sons, 37-year-old Jonathan, 35-year-old Joseph and 29-year-old Jordan, guilty of conspiring to defraud the United States and deliver misbranded drugs, according to court records. That charge carries up to five years in prison. Their sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 6.

Prosecutors called the Grenons “con men” and “snake-oil salesmen” and said the Bradenton family’s Genesis II Church of Health and Healing sold $1 million worth of their so-called Miracle Mineral Solution. In videos, it was pitched as a cure for 95% of known diseases, including Covid-19, Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis, prosecutors said.

  • LillyPip@lemmy.caOP
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    1 year ago

    What the Grenons were selling was actually chlorine dioxide, officials said. When ingested, the solution becomes a bleach that is typically used for such things as treating textiles, industrial water, pulp and paper, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Authorities said it is the same as drinking bleach and can be fatal.

    This quackery is especially dangerous – here are a couple of related stories:
    Fake science led a mom to feed bleach to her autistic sons and Husband Says Fringe Church’s ‘Miracle Cure’ Killed His Wife

    These people are a menace, and five years isn’t enough.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Was it really fake though? I mean, the President of the United States himself advocated for using bleach (“disinfectant”), surely that means it was a legitimate cure, right?

    “And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

    POTUS (April 23, 2020)

    • LillyPip@lemmy.caOP
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      They’re ignorant and scared, and bad people are keeping them that way because it’s profitable.

      I don’t know how to fix this other than raising the next generation to be less gullible. I feel like GenZ has been waking up, so I have hope.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    They made the biggest mistake a church can make, competing with big pharma. If you want to sell something, sell prayers or replicas of holy relics or literal snake oil, as long as you don’t call it a drug.

    Like these faith nickels I have for sale. They can help with hair cancer, eyelid twitching, nasal shortage, rickets, crickets, tickets, clickits, boneitis, polywater intoxication, Bowden’s malady, space madness, subspace madness, liminal space madness, Baggy Trousers by Madness, rectal upcharge, and bacne. Side effects include irritable spouse syndrome, flavor packets, butterfly affect, scruples, time dilation, back knee, and the squorts. Of course, I have scruples, so I couldn’t possibly let these powerful faith nickels get out into the world for less than three easy payments of $49.95 plus s&h.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This same scam is sold to parents of autistic children. They are conned into making their autistic kids drink bleach to “cure” them. It’s so sick.

    • Nix@merv.news
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      Its so damn sad people are preying on desperate people and making their children suffer

  • theyresocool@lemmy.world
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    Join a Florida church and sign up for their online sermons then report your findings to the FBI. Works every time.

    They don’t even hide their bs religious evil.