QAnon Conspiracy Theorists’ Magic Cure for Coronavirus Is Drinking Bleach

Will Sommer, writing for The Daily Beast:

As the global death toll from an alarming new coronavirus surged this week, promoters of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were urging their fans to ward off the illness by purchasing and drinking dangerous bleach.

The substance — dubbed “Miracle Mineral Solution” or “MMS” — has long been promoted by fringe groups as a combination miracle cure and vaccine for everything from autism to cancer and HIV/AIDS.

The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly warned consumers not to drink MMS, last year calling it effectively a “dangerous bleach” that could cause “severe vomiting” and “acute liver failure.” But those warnings haven’t stopped QAnon devotees — who believe in a world where Donald Trump is at war with shadowy deep-state “cabal” — from promoting a lethal substance as a salve for a health crisis that speaks to the darkest recesses of fringe thought.

Drink up, morons. And don’t forget to rinse your eyes with that stuff, too — that’s how the virus spreads.

★ Tuesday, 28 January 2020