Do you have HIV, malaria, hepatitis, the H1N1 flu virus, cancer or any possibly fatal diseases? Do their well-known statuses of being incurable frighten you? Well, look no further than MMS, or

“Miracle Mineral Solution,” to solve these pesky problems. A simple swig of 28 percent sodium chlorite in distilled water will surely solve any of these “incurable”  diseases!

That’s right. This is what a man called Jim Humble is pitching at the poor, gullible American populace. Humble is one example of sellers advertising, via the Internet, products that have no benefits. False selling has been increasing drastically, sometimes costing an arm and a leg. Occasionally, these products are labeled as free, as long as you provide your Social Security number and other private information.

The plethora of idiotic products does not stop there. People have gone so far as to buy the “gift of nothing”—in other words, a plastic ball with air inside it—for their loved ones. It’s only $5, after all. Why not be thrifty and thoughtful at the same time? 

Unfortunately, consumers often lack sound judgment when it comes to deciding whether every purchase is worth their cash. Buying bottles of oh-so-rare sea water and empty plastic balls are both sad examples of how delusional some buyers can be.

MMS, however, has long-term effects. In fact, it goes for $20 for four ounces. That’s $5 per ounce for what the FDA describes as “equivalent to industrial-grade bleach.”

Additionally, the directions for taking MMS advises the addition of an acid such as vinegar or orange juice before consumption. This acid-bleach mixture produces unsafe levels of chlorine dioxide, which can cause nausea, vomiting and dehydration. Additionally, MMS contains chlorine concentrations too dangerous for swimming and much more so for human consumption.

MMS also exceeds the safe consumption standards for sodium chlorite to the power of 200.

You’d think that after knowing all this, people would avoid the product at all costs, right? Wrong. In fact, it’s been successful enough to garner the attention of the FDA, Canada Health and the international community.

The number of consumers for products like this is higher than ever before, and desperate people in need of money have taken this to their advantage, going as far as to bottle seawater for a whopping price of $32, according to the Daily Mail.

Perhaps for those patients out there with cancer or AIDS, anything that gives even the slimmest ray of hope is worth a shot. What they might not know, though, is that there is no way MMS could cure them. It’s scientifically impossible.

There’s only one way to stop the ignorance: education. Better informed people will make better decisions, and those better decisions? They’ll save lives, and frauds like Jim Humble won’t get an easy route to becoming wealthy.