Can’t anyone put a stop to this?

“Parents hold their child down – three of them holding them down – and give this stuff as an enema,” says Emma Dalmayne. “Many feed it to their children. They even put it into their babies’ bottles.”

Dalmayne, a stay-at-home mother and autism campaigner from London, is describing Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), a “supplement” being sold online to parents as a “cure” for their autistic children. But MMS is essentially bleach. It is 28% sodium chlorite, and when used as instructed, generates chlorine dioxide – a potent bleach that’s used to strip textiles and for industrial water treatment.

It’s been around for years, people have been campaigning against it for years, but it’s still being marketed. People are still advertising bleach as a cure for autism – bleach to be ingested, not bleach to disinfect the garbage bin.

It is highly dangerous to ingest. Taken directly, MMS can cause severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, damage to the gut and red blood cells, respiratory problems, and can be fatal. “MMS can cause serious damage to health and in some cases even death,” says a spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency (FSA). “Anyone who has bought these products is advised to throw them away.”

It’s poison. Poison poison poison. It will kill you. It’s stuff you keep in a locked cupboard if you have young children. Yet people are marketing it as something to ingest.

Kerri Rivera, a prominent proponent of MMS and author of Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism, says: “Almost all of the people with autism have high levels of pathogens; virus, bacteria, parasites and heavy metals. Chlorine dioxide kills pathogens and helps the body to detoxify itself. It is considered safe at doses we use for weight.” She adds: “There are over 225 people who no longer have autism after using it.”

Weapons-grade quackery, and lethal to living beings.

Dalmayne has discovered a Facebook group for parents of autistic children – many from the UK – that’s centred on these “cures”. With the tagline “Solving the puzzle one drop at a time”, the more than 9,000 members of the group discuss using chlorine dioxide, often posting photos of their children with skin rashes and bleeding – “bragging” that it’s a sign it’s working or asking for help when they’re afraid.

“People post, ‘my child can’t walk because she’s/he’s doubled up in pain’ or ‘their urine’s pink’,” Dalmayne says. “One had three seizures in a day. But they’re always told by the other members, ‘That’s normal. That’s the autism leaving them.’” The people being given the “solution”, who are discussed in the group, range from vulnerable adults to children as young as 10 months, Dalmayne tells me. “It’s like they’re going to war with their own children,” she says.

That’s so terrifying.

Although the FSA’s food crime unit is working with councils and government departments to combat the promotion and sale of MMS, Dalmayne says the law needs to be changed. While it is unlawful to sell a product such as MMS that is injurious to health, “you can say, ‘this is a cure for autism’ – and right now there’s nothing we can do about it”, she says. She is campaigning with Change.org for the government to introduce legislation to ban the marketing of products to the public based on the false claim it will cure autism, as is already the case with alleged remedies for cancer.

I just signed that petition.