A diagnosis of autism can make it tempting to turn to alternative treatments. But weighing up the scientific evidence is crucial – and potentially life-saving.

As a rule of thumb, the more desperate and vulnerable you are the easier you are to exploit, with anything from financial advice to lifestyle tips. A diagnosis of an incurable disease; a child with a serious developmental disorder: these are circumstances that see many people seek unorthodox solutions, either as a way of coming to terms with what has happened, or in an attempt to find a treatment that perhaps the mainstream has not yet embraced, but which will give relief or cure.

However, some alternative products and techniques are not merely controversial, they are potentially dangerous. Recently in mainland Ireland, a number of parents have been interviewed by police as part of an on-going investigation with the Health Products Regulatory Authority. These parents are thought to have administered a substance known as MMS to their autistic children. MMS has been known variously as Master Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Solution and Miracle Mineral Supplement.

MMS is the brain-child of Jim Humble, a former scientologist turned health evangelist, who styles himself as the archbishop of the Genesis II Church of Health. MMS is promoted as a healing solution, and the church’s website links to testimonials attributing it with being effective for a range of ailments, including autism, Aids, cancer and malaria. Yet a chemical analysis of MMS shows it to be a slightly more earthly concoction: bleach.

Specifically, MMS is about 28% sodium chlorite, a toxic compound which has been shown to cause acute renal failure. Ingestion of even a gram can cause nausea, vomiting and occasionally life-threatening haemolysis. Were this not bad enough, users are directed to add an acidic agent, such as citric acid, and ingest the resultant mixture. The acid reaction with sodium chlorite yields chlorine dioxide: a powerful and toxic bleaching agent. Naren Gunja, director of the New South Wales poisons information centre in Australia, has likened taking MMS to being “a bit like drinking concentrated bleach”. Symptoms of ingestion tend to be consistent with corrosive injuries: vomiting, violent stomach pains, diarrhoea and even respiratory failure, if mixed wrongly. The substance pops up with depressing regularity, prompting health warnings from the Canadian and UK authorities, among others. Its supporters cite this toxicity as evidence the product is working. In the Irish case, it is alleged in at least one report that the solution was administered to autistic children orally, and in some cases rectally via enema.

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