Cleansing the Body From the Inside-Out

"Websites selling Miracle Mineral Solution describe the product as a liquid that is 28 percent sodium chlorite in distilled water. Product directions instruct people to mix the sodium chlorite solution with a citric acid, such as lemon or lime juice, or another acid before drinking. In many instances, the sodium chlorite is sold with a citric acid “activator.” When the acid is added, the mixture becomes chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleaching agent."

?Both sodium chlorite and chlorine dioxide are the active ingredients in disinfectants and have additional industrial uses. They are not meant to be swallowed by people."

U.S. Food & Drug Administration

 

"In Health Canada's most recent warning about the sale of a sodium chlorite-related product called Aerobic Oxygen, the agency said ingesting sodium chlorite can cause poisoning, kidney failure and harm to red blood cells."

"This in turn reduces the ability of the blood to carry oxygen, among other effects," the agency said in an advisory. "Ingesting sodium chlorite can also cause abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea."

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 

"It is designed to kill bacteria, pathogens, germs."

"It will do that to human tissue."

Richard Parsons, toxicologist, King's College London

 

"We have proactive measures in place to prevent this product from being sold, and we continuously monitor our store."

Amazon

 

Not closely enough, it would seem: "Miracle Mineral Solution", touted by its makers and purveyors to cure all ails from asthma to arthritis as a cure-all potion referred to commonly as MMS, but which is in actual fact, industrial grade bleach can readily be found online for sale at sites like Amazon, Etsy eBay and Poshmark where it is openly boasted to be a failsafe cure-all.

 

The product was popularized infamously in 2020 when former president Donald Trump recommended disinfectant as a potential COVID treatment. Science took no time debunking this startling disinformation, but global attention pivoted to it and sellers seized the opportunity to bring a fringe product into big business. They had no trouble finding an audience. After all, the president of the United States of America praised the product, used it himself.

What could go wrong?

The solution is comprised of one part sodium chlorite, a chemical disinfectant, and one part acid; a combination that dates from the 1990s. In 2018 it came to the attention of government agencies in Canada, he United Kingdom  and the United States which then took steps to warn their publics against its use, stressing the harmful effects and consequences of ingesting an industrial cleaner.

The product inspired the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, operated by a family which made use of social media to market the bleach solution, available through their church, where it was treated as a type of religious sacrament. The family's monthly sales soared when the product more than tripled orders following the Trump endorsement.

The bleaching agent was produced out of the family home, the solution was sold through their website. Sales went sky-high past $1 million, according to a federal indictment of the Grenom family against whom criminal charges were laid. They are scheduled to go to trial later this year, but incarceration hasn't stopped the Grenons from continuing to advertise the benefits of MMS through Telegram.

 

 

The Tragedy of Peruvian Indigenous Tribes

"We're physically fine."

"They took the boat and took the battery. They are friendly and respectful to us, but this is the only way they have to find solutions for their community."

"The sooner they are heard, the sooner they will let us go. Help me to share this."

Angela Ramirez, abducted Peruvian

"We have seen ourselves obliged to take this measure to summon the attention of a state that has not paid attention to us for eight years."

"[His community would allow the boat to continue its trip] in the coming hours."

Indigenous leader Wadson Trujillo, Lima, Peru

"The adults can still put up with the hunger but not the kids."

"No one has brought a single drop of water or food to our community."

Kukama chief Galo Vaszuez 

A group of tourists was travelling by boat when locals forced them to dock Credit: RPP News

 

In a remote corner of the Amazon in the first week of November a host of tourists were taken hostage to attract the attention of the Peruvian government to the plight of Indigenous Kukama communities in northeastern Peru. They were armed with spears and bows and arrows, forcing a boatload of about a hundred people  travelling through the area  to dock. The tourists were in no danger. They were being used as props in a desperate hostage-taking to publicize the fact that the Indigenous tribes were in a perilous environmental situation.

A deadly oil spill was at the centre of the protest. Those holding the tourists as hostages stated the group would be held until such time as the Peruvian government and Petroperu the oil company owned by the state, took the time and effort to see that their grievance was addressed. The oil spill was threatening enough to have been the source of poisoning killing two babies and a woman, as a result of their polluted water supply.

As the group of abductees saw their food and clean water running short, two of them warned that "conditions are starting to deteriorate". Neatly encapsulating the situation the tribes have also found themselves in. One of the tourists urged for "intervention to get us out of here", given the situation included the presence of  pregnant, diabetic elderly and ill people within the group.

Among the native Peruvians were Germans, British, Spanish and French tourists. On September 16, a 21 cm. gash in the Norperuano pipeline appeared, the pipeline used by oil company Petroperu to pump crude from its Amazon operations to the coast. According to the company, the rupture appeared to be a deliberate act of sabotage, without naming potential suspects. 

Since then, the oil seeped into a local river whose reliance as a potable water source and location of fishing stocks impoverished, isolated local communities depend on. As a result of the poisoning of the water the Kukama people became increasingly desperate following the death of three people. No action to address their concerns had been taken, despite holding talks with authorities.

The tribes feel abandoned by both their government and the oil company. Official negligence, oil spills and Indigenous communities left to their own devices is commonplace in northern Peru in the Amazon leading to some environmental groups campaigning to raise awareness. With the Left-wing populist Pedro Castillo taking office in 2021 the issue has intensified.

 

While President Castillo was campaigning he was the "president of the poor", so expectations were raised among Peruvians including among the marginalized communities in the Andes and
Amazon. Reality has raised its ugly head as corruption rages on and nothing has been done to help the poor.

In the end, although there was brief international interest aroused with the hostage-taking, highlighting the situation faced by the Amazon tribes, nothing has changed. The hostages were freed, their plight alleviated by the very people whose own misery remains outstanding. “The people have had to drink water and eat fish contaminated with petroleum without any government being concerned", said Wadson Trujillo.

The oil spills, about which nothing continues to be done, affected not only the thousand residents of his township, but another 80 communities nearby, many lacking running water, electricity or telephone services.

 

70 hostages including Brits have been freed after they were captured in the Amazon    Credit: rpp news

Home Deliveries during COVID-19

"[Just because the virus is] detectable [doesn't mean it necessarily poses a threat]."
"If you take basic precautions the danger from accepting a package from a delivery driver or takeout from a local restaurant or from buying groceries is de minimis."
Joseph G.Allan, assistant professor, exposure and assessment science, Harvard University

An Amazon delivery driver (not pictured) has tested positive for COVID-19. AP

"[Despite the company's ] expressions of support for its workforce [many Amazon employees insist the official messaging] doesn't always match what they have seen inside the company's warehouses."
"[They are concerned] about crowded hiring events and training sessions, limited access to disinfectant wipes, and the company's overall ability to follow through on its commitments."
CNN

Most retail establishments have now been identified as 'non-essential', and have been ordered by governments to close down for the time being, until the urgency over the novel coronavirus hurtling its threat against civil society everywhere has been brought under control. So while grocery stores, pharmacies and (unaccountably puzzling) liquor store outlets (in Ontario) are considered essential services, other retail dealers and outlets may only offer curbside pickup with online ordering.

Greater numbers of people are trying to switch over to ordering what they need in groceries and from pharmacies online to be delivered or for pickup at designated areas. The trouble is, as more people living lockdown conditions turn to eordering, supermarkets and other groups such as pet food stores (also considered non-essential) are experiencing difficulties catching up to the demand. If you're placing a food order and want to pick it up the same day, you find that pick-up spaces are blocked for the next month.

And then the public, already deeply concerned over their vulnerability to the epidemic where the highly contagious COVID-19 has been spreading, and hoping to evade capture by the little-understood zoonotic, continues to turn to deliveries from Amazon. In the current situation where small businesses are shuttering for good and large businesses appeal to government for financial assistance, the supply lines are being stretched to the limit.

Grocery chains are challenged to meet the needs of the public, a public which has reacted to the lockdown by fears of food shortages and shortages of disinfectant and toilet tissues, by emptying shelves. The supply model of 'just-in-time' warehousing and delivery was not designed for the current situation of panic buying and hoarding. Clearly, there is a dire need recognized to retool the model that has failed in this time of a coronavirus epidemic haunting the world.

While large corporations tremble in anticipation of being unable to weather this viral storm, there is one service that has the potential to grow faster than it might ever have dreamed of doing, even at a time when it was already a service-delivery success story, and that's Amazon. How well they've risen to the challenge, in face of the fact that drivers are themselves vulnerable to infection by the virus and then transmitting the virus to the public they serve, is a question not yet answered.

But for those customers who order through Amazon, yet quail at the thought of taking possession of a delivery package that just might be contaminated by the virus when they're concerned with reducing the potential of infection and worrying that Amazon delivery might pose as a direct danger, they would likely do best to relax about it because experts in the field claim such contamination to be highly unlikely. So, not the package, but the driver.

It is, in very fact, the drivers, exposed to a wide variety of people at doorstops delivering those packages who are at risk. The global pandemic has managed handily to upset entire universal applecarts. While Amazon has seen a huge  uptick in sales, their employees are less than gratified at the attention paid to their own state of health. In one area, employees were outraged that they were informed a week after one of the employees had been confirmed with COVID-19.

In this new world order where packaging and delivery play a vital new role, as people venture out of their homes with trepidation and care against infection, the new lifestyle imposed upon communities of social distancing and closed businesses require reliability of deliveries. Which places the public at an advantage, able to sequester at home, but employees of Amazon and other like conformations at higher risk of contracting COVID.

Amazon suggestions:

The first suggestion is to wipe down packages with disinfectant. Most deliveries coming from Amazon have two pieces of packaging--the product packaging, and the shipping container. Realistically, you should probably just remove your product from the shipping package, and dispose of that box immediately. 

Once you've done that, the surface of the inside package can be wiped down with a disinfectant wipe. Most products shipped by Amazon have likely been in a package for some time, meaning that the inside product probably isn't a super likely source of infection. Still, if you want to be extra careful, you can wipe that surface as well.

After you've disposed of the packaging, and wiped everything else down, wash your hands. This, by the way, is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of the virus anyway--meaning, you should be doing it anyway.

If that's not enough, another option is to leave the entire package outside, or, as Carney said, put it "in a remote location for a period of time." While it's not known exactly how long this particular virus can survive on cardboard packaging, in the long term it needs a host organism to survive and multiply. If it can survive on cardboard for only 24 hours, leaving it outside may kill it, allowing you to safely bring your package inside. 

If you have a garage, you can simply place the entire box outside, and leave it a few days. Then, to be safe, you can wipe down the inside package as described above.

Jason Aten, Inc.

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