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Images of the endoscope show serious injury and swelling in the esophagus, the organ connecting the mouth and stomach.
They come from a patient from the South American country of Bolivia, who drank a poisonous substance called chlorine dioxide, a commercial bleach, under the false but not unusual confidence that he is alienated from COVID-19.
Injuries are a striking example of pain in Bolivia through a crusade to legitimize chlorine dioxide, known through its supporters as the Miracle Mineral Solution.
Supporters of MMS, a global network of conspiracy theorists and advocates of choice fitness, say it is unfounded that the substance can treat any disease.
In Bolivia, mired in a deep political crisis and a severe COVID-19 epidemic, they achieved their ultimate unexpected fortune to date.
Clinical photographs reported through Business Insider were included in an urgent note shared among Bolivian doctors facing an outbreak of patients breaking their bodies while eating MMS.
The doctor who took the photographs described its effect as “sudden and explosive. “They were shared with Business Insider through a doctor in Bolivia, who called for anonymity because it was not legal to make them public.
In Bolivia, it is lately illegal to advertise MMS as a medical substance, but the country’s fitness infrastructure is weak, making the country promises of quick solutions. Despite warnings, the country’s legislature recently approved an invoice authorizing its use.
The law is stagnant after Bolivia’s president refused to point it out, and may end up in Bolivia’s Supreme Court.
MMS is in a position in production in university laboratories, in a position to be administered to patients with COVID-19 and many others use it anyway.
Across the country, many injuries, and one death, have been reported among those who have used them.
In July, 3 other people were poisoned by the substance in El Alto and 10 in the town of Cochabamba. In the town of Trinidad, doctors said a woman’s death was due to bleach intake.
For years, other people selling MMS have worked outside the Internet, under increasing pressure in Europe and North America by fitness authorities, law enforcement and social media companies.
MMS is not a medical remedy, but a type of bleach that is mainly used as a disinfectant or for bleaching paper products.
Its use in humans was first promoted through Genesis II Church, a Florida-based organization whose leader, Mark Grenon, recently arrested in Colombia, sought him out through researchers in the United States who linked mms promotion to at least seven deaths.
In the United States, MMS has been the subject of several warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, which claims to have won reports of “severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, life-threatening hypotension from dehydration and acute liver failure after drinking those products. . . “
Bolivia’s own Fitness Ministry has warned that it opposes taking the substance. In a July ruling, MMS “puts the fitness of the population that consumes or intends to do so at serious risk. “
Bolivia is one of the Latin American countries most affected by the coronavirus, with at least 118,000 cases and 5,200 deaths among its 11 million inhabitants, according to the knowledge of Johns Hopkins University.
The region has been specific to MMS advocates and Bolivia has proven to be particularly fertile terrain.
Hospitals are deformed by effort and must-have appliances such as enthusiasts are scarce. Many Bolivians do not have health insurance or, because of political unrest or poor road conditions, hospitals cannot.
Kate Centellas, Croft’s adjunct professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Mississippi, says she is in crisis.
She told Business Insider that the points they contributed included “panic at the height of COVID-19 instances in Bolivia, which appears to be underestimated given the already deficient mortality rate and infrastructure it suffers to improve. “
Jhanisse Vaca Daza is a human rights activist whose charity Standing Rivers has organized efforts to distribute essential medical materials to Bolivians who cannot or cannot access health care.
She also said depression was the spread of misguided medical information.
Andreas Kalcker, a self-proclaimed German “researcher” with no obvious qualifications, has entered chaos.
On Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and national reports, he and his allies claimed, without the authorization of the medical government and on the basis of necessarily anecdotal evidence, that chlorine dioxide provides a reasonable solution available to COVID-19.
When they were arrested, he and his affiliates described the medical government as malicious actors in an imperialist conspiracy to suppress the remedy.
Kalcker describes himself on his Instagram profile as “director of the Swiss Centre for Scientific Research, Innovation and Development”.
Business Insider did not discover any mention of that organization in the official swiss registers. Kalcker is also registered as a fitness professional in the country.
Last year, his book, “Forbidden Health,” was banned through Amazon for selling MMS as a drug, following research through NBC News.
In 2015, the Irish broadcaster Ruté reported that Kalcker was a fake certificate purchased online to pose as an expert.
In months, Kalcker has intensified his efforts to advertise the substance in Latin America and his profile continues to grow.
On June 29, he met on Bolivia’s national television channel RED Gigavisión on MMS. Kalcker attacked Bolivia’s Ministry of Health as a precaution with bleach and claimed that he effectively opposed COVID-19.
In the interview, illustrated above, his references were never questioned and treated as a valid clinical expert, filmed in what appears to be a laboratory, near clinical teams.
“In giving the substances, they are guilty of the genocide!” said Bolivia’s Ministry of Health.
In an email sent to Business Insider, Kalcker said: “There are 1327 clinical articles about chlorine dioxide . . . Have you studied them all? In fact, it took me a long time to do it myself . . . :))”
He added: “Also keep in mind that further censorship of the use of chlorine dioxide will undoubtedly result in many more deaths, and all of this will be genocide. Genocide is a crime without a statute of limitations and all the culprits will eventually do so. be completely guilty. “
As the coronavirus spread in Bolivia over the summer, resources told Business Insider that many common Bolivians were persuaded through unfounded claims like Kalcker’s.
Unlike many traditional medicines, MMS is cheap, according to Vaca Daza, the human rights activist, it has temporarily become easy to get through word-of-mouth sellers, Facebook sellers and, later, pharmacies.
She said, “There is so much despair. We see it firsthand because we deliver protective appliances and food. We’ve noticed how desperate other people are. Therefore, having anything that is not only reasonable but also available turns out to be the best you would like to locate now. “
Centellas, of the University of Mississippi, said many Bolivians were unable to access hospitals and sought treatments of choice.
She said: “I think we also want to perceive the relative dangers here. If we’re already in poor health enough and you can’t go to the hospital or get tested, maybe the bleach would seem a little moderate, at least you. “”I don’t do something. “
Vaca Daza said the result for hospitals is that they were treating mmS injuries in addition to an already unmanageable volume of COVID-19 patients.
“They take it as a preventive measure, take them to the hospital and then get the cOVID from the exposure,” he said. “It makes things worse and the doctors are already overwhelmed. “
Kalcker’s efforts to publicize MMS in Bolivia were supported through a questionable organization of physicians. They’re led by La Paz’s pediatrician, dr. Patricia Callisperis, and they call themselves the Global Coalition for Health and Life, or Comusav, and presents several videos of Kalcker.
In a report to Business Insider, Callisperis said he advocated the use of chlorine dioxide to treat COVID-19 because of its “mitochondrial oxygenating action. “
David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London who demystifies pseudoscience, described his as “an invented trick. “
“Regardless of the movements you have at the cellular level, it has to do with whether you’re helping COVID (or autism or whatever’s promoting it lately). It requires human testing,” he said.
Callisperis said Comusav “is testing everything” because “there is no clinical evidence of a proposed drug or substance in the world” to treat COVID-19.
In a video posted on YouTube in July and broadcast to Business Insider through a country activist, Callisperis described the MMS as “an herb that penetrates the ancestral roots of Bolivians. “
According to Bolivian media, Comusav used MMS to treat patients in Oruro, eastern Bolivia, with local authorities and pressured Bolivian politicians to legalize the substance.
The Los Tiempos Newspaper reported that lawmakers in the town of La Paz, the country’s capital, cited the “expert testimony” of Callisperis and Kalcker as they went to legalize the substance.
Callisperis showed that Bolivian lawmakers had consulted Comusav on mmS. She said, “They asked us why they did see their need for answers to this fitness crisis satisfied: the public is asking for a reaction through their legislative representatives. “
Callisperis then downplayed reports of damage caused through the substance. It stated that the media reports cited through Business Insider were not rigorous enough and that Comusav would avoid selling MMS if “conclusive” evidence was presented.
In his statement, Kalcker stated that Comusav chlorine dioxide was irrefutable proof of its effectiveness.
“In the most productive case, you may be able to lie to or lie to a handful of DoctorsArray . . . But cheating on more than 3000 doctors? That would be a great achievement, wouldn’t it?” he wrote.
(It is transparent if Comusav has so many members).
“Please start waking up from the ‘Matrix’ we’re in, because there are also a lot of hounds who are also dying for this, my friend,” he added.
It’s not just media reports, it’s about an influential medical organization that warned that the substance can kill.
The Collegiate Medical Organization, an influential Spanish medical regulator in the Spanish-speaking world, issued a rebuttal of Comusav’s claims that MMS can be used to treat COVID-19.
He cautioned in the August 25 communiqué that, in doses through Comusav and others, it “endangers the health” of patients and produces “adverse effects that can be serious”.
However, Callisperis and other advocates have discovered enthusiasm among many Bolivian lawmakers, who, according to critics, are eager to exploit the country’s political turmoil.
When the coronavirus arrived in Bolivia, it was already a country in crisis.
Last November, the country’s socialist president, Evo Morales, resigned after accusations of electoral fraud, replaced by the interim government of conservative Jeanine Ez until new elections were held.
Although Morales fell, his Movement to Socialism party retained any of the chambers of the country’s legislature, which led to political stagnation.
It has been difficult for management to respond to the coronavirus, his government has been embroiled in other allegations of corruption, by the acquisition of hospital fans, a scandal that led to the arrest of the country’s fitness minister.
The episode, activists told Business Insider, has increased Bolivians’ distrust of the country’s political class.
For Centellas, advocating for unquenchable remedies has a means of signaling discontent with political and clinical institutions, just as in the United States.
“I think we’re seeing a lot now with MMS in the US. But it’s not the first time And elsewhere, if you settle for that, it’s a way to express your rejection of the existing political formula and ask yourself what they’re saying and whether they’re effective or not. “Said.
Elections were to be held in Bolivia in September, but the government postponed them until October 18, bringing out the coronavirus crisis. Supporters of the Socialism Movement took to the streets to protest, blocked roads and it was not easy for Ez to resign.
As it seeks to put even more pressure on the government, the left-wing party has taken advantage of Bolivia’s so-called miracle cure, in what critics say is a cynical political gamble.
The country’s Senate, led by the Movement for Socialism, approved chlorine dioxide as a remedy for COVID-19 in July, followed by the declining space in August.
The next step is for ez to point out or leave the bill. Although he has pointed out his opposition, he has done neither.
Now, the Senate leader threatens to overturn any veto on the bill, which could bring the case to Bolivia’s Supreme Court.
Vaca Daza, the activist, thinks that the MAS set a trap for her in Aez: by refusing to approve the bill that legalizes chlorine dioxide, she will open herself to claims that she is the enemy of the people, refusing a life-saving drug. .
“My guess is that this wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t months before an election,” Vaca Daza said. “I think they created the best typhoon to bring the MAS party back to power. The total history of the MAS party. ” It’s just that the Executive and the opposition are an organization of elites who hate the deficient and need them to disappear. “
She added: “So chlorine dioxide, whether effective or Array, is a smart thing to incorporate into this narrative because it’s cheap, it gives the impression that they’re protecting people and obviously the executive has to block it because it’s healthy. “
Senate leader Monica Eva Copa, a member of DSS, responded to a request for feedback from Business Insider.
But as electoral technique and unscrupulous local self-proclaimed fitness experts and politicians continue to promote the substance, Bolivians are paying the price.
For Centellas, it’s done.
“Even if it’s officially banned,” he said, “I’m not sure it replaces much in terms of other people who already use it or are interested in it compared to other people who think it’s dangerous. “
Ruqayyah Moynihan contributed to this article.