News from Trading Standards on Bleachgate…

Hello all,

At home today, because I’m feeling sick and have a sore throat.

However, I have received a letter from Cardiff Trading Standards today about Miracle Mineral Solution. This, I guess, is the response to my council meeting public question where I asked to know what they were doing about it!

First off, it was due to my initial Trading Standards complaint that the FSA acted. Cardiff Trading Standards referred the matter to the FSA, who as we know, released a warning here.

Now, here’s for the very exciting news…

The FSA have advised me further that they have notified the European Commission so that the product may be withdrawn across the European Authority.

This is excellent! Also, some news that the FSA are advising local authorities

…of any websites in their area selling MMS so that enforcement action can be taken.

For those who wrote to Southwark Trading Standards and heard back from them that they were already dealing with it and already knew about MMS Health, now you know why!

Also, some more information regarding the very first complaint I made to Devon Trading Standards about MMS Europe. Yes, the website run by one Christian Pankhurst. Rather unsurprisingly

…the address on the website does not appear to be accurate…

Devon Trading Standards have since referred it onto East Cheshire Trading Standards, as that’s the area where it is believed Pankhurst ‘resides’.

Also, Cardiffians, good news! It appears that there are no MMS sellers here in Cardiff.  Hurray! Even so…

…we are in the process of checking premises…

They’re really taking it seriously, which is good. The more action taken on the sellers of MMS, the better. Thanks again to everyone who has helped! Now, lets wait for (even more of) the fall out…

P.S. You can listen to my interview on RI Podcast here. They also managed to get the man himself, Jim Humble for an interview here. Well worth a listen. Very enlightening. You can also read Marsh’s thoughts on Jim here.

Published by Rhys

Computer Science graduate, from Oxford Brookes University. Originally from Cardiff.

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41 Comments

  1. It isn’t surprising that the address for MMS Europe is incorrect. This is the case for a lot of the websites and eBay etc storefronts that sell dubious medicinal products.

    Trading Standards should know that this is a breach of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.

  2. Fantastic result Rhys. The full curb stomping of this absurd “medicine” can begin in ernest.

    You can be properly proud of the work you have done here.

  3. Get well soon, Rhys and Sinead…

    And truly excellent work here – if I might be so bold:

    “You da man!”

    😉

    1. Great work, Rhys! I’ve become a little cynical about my own generation lately – I’m only 20, but I am sick of hearing all the shit that so many people believe – but you’ve actually cheered me up this gloomy Monday morning. Keep up the great work

  4. Looks like the MMS Health site has been taken down. However, the MMS Europe site is still up and running. Hopefully, that will be shut down soon too! Excellent work.

  5. Good for you, Rhys. By the way, you might try a bit of all-natural HCl for that throat. I’m told it also cures AIDS, syphilis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

  6. Rhys,
    I work in public health and I have to say you have undertaken a fabulous piece of public health work. You harnessed your inquisitiveness, scientific knowledge and research skills realised the potential the risk to many; did what you could to communicate with those who needed to be alerted immediately; and successfully lobbied appropriate bodies for action.
    I will see what I can do to get some Welsh and UK public health bodies aware of the FSA lobbying of the European Commission.
    Keep up the good work.
    Nigel

  7. You deserve a medal of honor for your efforts at creating public awareness about this toxic fraud and for calling attention to it with the proper government agencies! Excellent work!

  8. Hi Rhys,

    I’m italian and I learned about your story from an italian blog about quackery. I’d like to tell you a big THANX for your excellent job. Keep going on. And good luck for all.
    Enrico

  9. Good work. I am astonished to the sheer cruelty and stupidity of this person that is marketing chloride and salt as cancer treatment.

  10. Whether your actions regarding MMS are justified are not I do not know but I would like you to consider an unintended consequence: the Natural Food Industry throughout Europe has been slowly strangled over the last decade due to pressure from the Medical and Pharma Establishment. Your actions may lead to a further erosion of consumer choice.

      1. Yes, I am familiar with the organic food industry in Europe. The Natural Foods Industry includes supplements and vitamins, access to which has been sharply curtailed in the last decade in the EU in the name of public safety.

      1. kayumochi, umm, it is.

        “This stuff is bleach, you take it, you will do damage to your body. Don’t take it. Bleach is not good to ingest”.

        That’s the message, and it’s remarkably simple. Ineffective or downright DANGEROUS products should not be on the market, and should be exposed for being ineffective or downright dangerous. If that limits choices, what do you propose as an alternative, let these people continue peddling bleach to unsuspecting victims unquestioned?

        What exactly would you want instead? How can exposing a product for being dangerous be anything but good?

        It seems pretty clear cut to me, perhaps you would have done something differently, what? And would it weigh on your conscience that people are suffering by ingesting bleach and you say nothing?

        http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/_2010/2010_74-eng.php
        http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm220747.htm
        http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0648.htm
        http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2010/sep/mms

        Why not, instead of talking about “unintended consequences”, look into the substance yourself? Why not learn that regardless of “unintended consequences”, there is no reason, at all, that this product should be sold to people claiming to cure things like AIDS or cancer. It’s bleach, plain and simple.

      2. How is it not that simple? “This product is bleach. Bleach is bad for you”.

        Seems pretty simple to me.

      3. Andrew, I can turn that right around: “Big Supplement” wishes it had the clout of “Big Pharma” – they can be the second leading cause of death and still rake in billions of dollars without fearing they will be shut down.

    1. … shilling for Big supplement under the guise of concern for consumer choice? Really, your arguments against oversight over “natural foods” sound rather hollow in the context of bleachgate.

      1. “shilling?” “Big supplement” Laff. Your argument sounds rather hollow in the context of what has happened in in the EU over the last decade with this industry. All very well documented by the media I might add. Laff harder.

      2. @kayumochi
        Big supplement, why not? It is a multibillion dollar industry with enviable political clout – in the US they can largely do as they please and FDA can do very little about it – because they lobbied DSHEA through the Congress. I hear that your favorite Ron Paul introduced recently three bills aiming to limit event further the ability of FTC and FDA to investigate sellers of dietary supplements. So, Big supplement fits, IMHO (of course I did not invent the term). Here in Europe they tripped over Commission’s fad for regulating everything, but in this case it may not be such a bad thing. And when I saw that you trotted out that tired old canard about limiting consumers choice (repeated ad nauseam by the supplement industry in 2000+) only because somebody will not be able to sell industrial bleach as health supplement, I wondered … sorry if I was wrong.

      3. @martihh

        “sorry if I was wrong.”

        I accept your apologies. How could you know that the US Natural Food and Supplement industry has very, very little clout?

        Prescription drugs, depending on the year, are either ranked the 3 or 4th leading cause of death in the USA. If you were to factor in medical error it would rank 1 or 2.

        Yet, if someone gets ill from another health modality it is big news. Oh, the outrage!

      4. *facepalm*
        kayumochi, the entire point of that the “US Natural Food and Supplement” industry DOES have quite a bit of clout. They’ve pushed for, and succeeded in getting, incredibly reduced regulation. The FDA can’t do anything to an industrial bleach solution being touted as a miracle cure, isn’t that indicative of how much clout the entire “supplement” industry has? Any drug marketed as an actual “drug” targeting AIDS, Cancer, malaria, the common cold, Chron’s disease, etc, would have to pass quite a lot of clinical studies and would NEVER be put on the public if it is actually a bleach solution.

        Say what you will about “big pharma”, but it’s a lot harder to get a drug passed than a supplement passed. There’s a reason that biotech stocks are so risky, because unless they’re in Phase IV development of a new drug, it’s very easy for drugs to fail clinical trials. And the people who die are generally dying from overdose, not the fault of the doctors or the companies. You should make sure you don’t overdose on prescription drugs, they do things to your body, unlike most supplements.

        “Big Pharma” wishes it had the kind of clout that “big supplement” has. If they were how you seem to imagine them, and they could charge 20$ for a bottle of “natural X supplement” without having to care about if it does shit to your body, they would be.

  11. So I’m curious, what’s your next target of exposure? There are plenty of quacks out there and we need more people to take a stand and expose tricksters, fraudsters, and downright liars for the cretins they really are.

    And about the sore throat, MMS might not help, but it’d probably would taste better than nyquil. And it might even hurt less too, aside from the vomiting.

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