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.
Safety would be guaranteed if the concentrations used for MMS didn't exceed the level used for water treatment (under the natural assumption that water is not treated in order to become toxic), I don't assert that the concentrations suggested by MMS proponents are unsafe, but rather that being a water treatment agent does not alone guarantee safety.
As for marginal benefits: water treatment is beneficial if all water one drinks is treated and if the water were infected before treatment. The MMS protocol, as likely applied in the western world, reduces to treating one glass of water a day, or even a glass of juice. Under normal conditions in developed countries drinking water or juice are perfectly safe as they are - adding disinfectant improves nothing. If, accidentally, the user has access to spoiled water only, treating one glass again is nearly worthless, since the germs would arrive to the intestinal tract with the next glass. If MMS were indeed beneficial, it would probably be for reasons completely unrelated to its being used for water treatment.
Reading more into Wikipedia I found the transformation goes as 2 NaClO2 + Cl2 → 2 ClO2 + 2 NaCl, which suggests you have to add chlorine to trigger the reaction. Are you sure this is happening when MMS is put into water? I suppose adding salt would be sufficient, but they suggest adding organic acids.