In The Politics of Autism, I discuss autism quackery. One particularly dangerous"cure" involves bleach.
Although the FDA has issued numerous warnings about the effects of MMS (and although Humble himself has publicly admitted that the substance “cures nothing”), there are still numerous videos on YouTube of Humble promoting the substance as a cure for, among other things, autism, according to a Business Insider investigation; the report also found that the videos were easily accessible on the platform, coming up as a top result in searches for terms like “autism” and, in some cases, racking up millions of views.
There are also a number of private Facebook groups advocating for using MMS or other forms of sodium chlorite as a cure for autism. Such groups, which overlap a great deal with anti-vaccine content, contain shocking testimonials from mothers who administer these treatments to their autistic children, reporting horrifying adverse reactions; in one particularly appalling case, a mother of a six-year-old autistic boy was reportedly investigated by police after giving him a bleach enema, which led to him having his bowel removed and needing a colostomy bag.
