Florida family found guilty of selling bleach product as COVID-19 ‘cure-all’
Jul 21, 2023, 1:14 PM | Updated: 2:50 pm
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - FEBRUARY 11: Bottles of Clorox bleach sit on a shelf at a grocery store on February 11, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Shares of Clorox stock rose 7.6 percent to close at $71.26 after billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed in a regulatory filing that he holds close to 9.1 percent stake in the company. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(CNN) — A federal jury in Miami on Wednesday found a Florida family guilty of defrauding the United States by distributing a toxic bleaching agent as a Covid-19 cure, according to court records.
Mark Grenon and his sons, Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph Grenon, were convicted of promoting and selling “Miracle Mineral Solution,” which “when mixed, develops into a dangerous bleach which has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects,” according to the FDA, which issued a warning about the product in 2019.
The solution contains sodium chlorite and water, court records said. The Grenons instructed customers to mix the solution with an “acidic activator,” which produces chlorine dioxide, “a powerful bleaching agent typically used for bleaching and stripping textiles, pulp, and paper.”
According to the criminal complaint, the Grenons claimed the “Miracle Mineral Solution” was a “miracle cure-all,” which could not only treat, prevent and cure Covid-19, but also “a variety of serious diseases and disorders, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism, malaria, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and HIV/AIDS.” They advised the solution could be used to treat both adults and children.
The family was found guilty of defrauding the United States and its agencies, distributing an unapproved new drug, and distributing a misbranded drug.
After the Grenons started promoting the solution as a cure for Covid-19 in March 2020, bank records show they “received around $123,000 in monthly MMS-related sales revenue, a nearly 400% increase in sales,” the complaint says. In the last year, they collected around $500,000 in sales from Miracle Mineral Solution, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, in order to evade government regulation, the family sold the solution under “the guise of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing.” The Grenons said in an interview they had founded Genesis – described as “a non-religious church” – in order to evade legal regulations around Miracle Mineral Solution, the complaint said.
Court records showed the men chose to represent themselves at trial and “declined to respond” when asked if they wished to have counsel appointed. Their sentencing is scheduled for October 6, 2023, according to the court docket.
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