We can always use more case studies of insanity that aren't religion, right?
Well, Miracle Mineral Supplement is my new go-to example for Bad Things happening to people with low epistemic standards. "MMS" is a supposed cure for everything ranging from the common cold to HIV to cancer. I just saw it recommended in another Facebook thread to someone who was worried about malaria symptoms.
It's industrial-strength bleach. Literally just bleach. Usually drunk, sometimes injected, and yes, it often kills you. It is every bit as bad as it sounds if not worse.
This is beyond Poe's Law. Medieval blood draining via leeches was far more of an excusable error than this, they had far less evidence it was a bad idea. I think if I was trying to guess what was the dumbest alternative medicine on the planet, I still would not have guessed this low. My brain is still not pessimistic enough about human stupidity.
Hormesis might be relevant here. I don't see a compelling reason to believe these people are not being helped in some cases. This isn't homeopathy-level crazy. And let's not forget to do the utilitarian homework: one case of cancer remission (or any other serious condition) is worth a substantial number of mild digestive discomfort.
It also isn't religion-level crazy, since it is empirically testable (actually rather trivial to test as these things go!), and controlled studies could probably change most of these people's minds on it. Knee-jerk appeals to disgust and "hey it's bleach!" seem like unimpressive noise to me. Why not "hey we tried this on 100 people and they did 10% worse than the control group!"
I see no reason to expect hormesis to be relevant. Typically, hormesis is about really low doses, sometimes to the point where accidental contamination is a confound: for example, in radiation hormesis, I've read of measures like using ancient marble or lead as shielding because they will have less residual radiation than other materials. If the bleach hormetic doses are that small, then all they're doing is poisoning themselves by going way beyond hormetic doses...