A father and his three sons have been convicted by a Miami federal court to up to 12 years in jail for making $1 million by selling toxic bleach as a miracle cure for coronavirus through a fake church.
Mark Grenon, 65, and his sons Jonathan, 37, Joseph, 35 and Jordan, 29 were found guilty of plotting to cheat the US government and FDA by circulating an unapproved and misbranded drug.
Jonathan and Jordon received 12 years jail sentences after being found guilty of two counts of breaking federal court orders requiring them to quit selling the drug, while dad Mark and his other son Joseph Grenon both received five-year terms.
The family, all of Bradenton, Florida, started selling Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), a chemical solution containing sodium chlorite that, when combined with water and a citric acid activator, turns into chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach.
The Grenons claimed that ingesting MMS could treat, prevent and cure COVID-19.
The product was sold after the foursome set up a phoney Florida church website which defrauded thousands of people across the US, in 2010. The sales continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Drug Administration never approved MMS for treatment of COVID-19, or for any other use and strongly urged customers not to buy or use MMS for any reason.
It explained how ingesting MMS was the same as drinking bleach and could induce harmful side effects, including extreme vomiting, diarrhoea, and life-threatening low blood pressure.
In April 2020, the feds cracked down on the enterprise after the Grenons defied FDA orders to stop distributing the harmful substance.
Their defiance of the court order eventually led to criminal indictments and a raid on their home in Bradenton, south of Tampa Bay, where investigators discovered loaded firearms, almost 10,000 pounds of sodium chlorite powder and thousands of bottles of MMS.
Jonathan and Jordan were arrested in Bradenton, and Joseph fled to Columbia, where he was later deported by the Columbian authorities.
The Grenons decided to represent themselves during their July trial and said nothing throughout the proceedings until the 12-person jury returned their verdict when Joseph told the court that they would be appealing.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors portrayed the Grenons as con men using the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing website as a front to trick customers and the US government.
As I recall, Donald Trump supported this idea, even if inadvertently and if he’d succeeded his followers would have drunk the Kool-Aid.
His COVID talks were insane. Gaslighting the morons and rambling on.
I remember it well, although he didn’t say we should drink it. He took to the White House briefing room and encouraged his top health officials to study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting COVID.
It was a watershed moment and extremely anal when it came to presidential briefings and it arguably altered the course of political history.
It’s awful that Americans would even believe this rubbish, but people wanted a cure, so they just bought it without even thinking about the consequences. Snake oils have been sold for centuries because people become desperate and are easily led by greedy people wanting to make a buck or to, extremely sad, extremely dangerous.
Sadly we must be the dimest race because we accept what we are told and people will rush out and buy it, drink it or inject it in the hope that it works.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 