Leaders of the online Genesis II Church of Health and Healing have been brought to trial for allegedly selling a bleach solution as a miracle cure for COVID-19.
Mark Grenon, 62, and his sons Jonathan Grenon, 34, Jordan Grenon, 26, and Joseph Grenon, 32, have been charged with conspiring to defraud the United States and deliver misbranded drugs.
Based in Bradenton, Florida, Genesis II Church sold chlorine dioxide, calling it “Miracle Mineral Solution” (MMS) and claiming that in addition to curing COVID-19, it cured malaria, cancer, and even autism.
Although the organization’s website has been taken down, a screen capture archived in 2020 reveals that Genesis II Church claimed to have multiple local chapters. It charged $35 for annual membership for the first year and $20 every year thereafter. The website said that members would receive an identification card that could be used for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine.
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The organization also offered online courses in “MMS Protocols” and training to become a “certified health minister.”
Despite calling itself a church, Genesis II Church was non-religious, stating, “We believe that it is each member’s private responsibility to form his or her own religious beliefs and thus we remain neutral to all the religious beliefs of our members.”
The website claimed that the church’s mission was to “really change the world, not all the mamby pamby stuff that the religions have been spewing for the past thousands of years.”
According to the Food and Drug Administration, the solution Genesis II Church sold as MMS is most often used for treating textiles, industrial water, pulp and paper, and could be fatal to ingest.
Nevertheless, Mark Grenon, who titled himself bishop of Genesis II Church, referred to MMS not only as a miracle cure, but as a “sacrament.”
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In April 2020, a South Florida judge ordered the Grenons to stop selling MMS as a miracle cure, an order they allegedly ignored. Criminal charges were brought against the family in July 2020.
