Genesis II Church of Health and Healing: MMS, COVID, and Sentencing

The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing was a Bradenton, Florida operation that sold a sodium chlorite solution — industrial bleach — as “Miracle Mineral Solution,” or MMS, marketing it as a cure for COVID-19, cancer, autism, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, and dozens of other diseases. In 2023 a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida convicted its four leaders, Mark Grenon and his sons Jonathan, Jordan, and Joseph, of conspiracy to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug. They were sentenced that October to prison terms ranging from five years to more than twelve.¹

What MMS Actually Was

MMS is sodium chlorite mixed with water. When a user activates it with citric acid and drinks it, as the church instructed, it becomes chlorine dioxide, a chemical used industrially to bleach textiles, pulp, and paper and to treat water.² The FDA has never approved MMS for any use and has warned that drinking it is equivalent to drinking bleach, with documented effects including severe vomiting, diarrhea, and life-threatening drops in blood pressure.³

Between 2014 and 2019, U.S. poison control centers managed more than 16,500 cases involving chlorine dioxide, about 2,500 of them children under twelve. More than 2,100 caused serious side effects, 50 were life-threatening, and eight people died.⁴

How the Church Operated

Mark Grenon led the organization under the title “archbishop,” having taken over public leadership from MMS’s original promoter, Jim Humble. The church ran weekend seminars at which attendees paid $450 to be ordained as “health ministers” and then distributed MMS in their own communities.⁵ Mark and his son Joseph promoted the product on a podcast called “G2Voice” and on multiple church websites, labeling bottles as “sacraments” available for “donations.” The donation amounts were mandatory and fixed, and prosecutors treated them as ordinary sales prices.²

The actual manufacturing took place in a shed in the backyard of Jonathan Grenon’s Bradenton home. When authorities raided the site, they found dozens of blue chemical drums holding nearly 10,000 pounds of sodium chlorite powder, along with thousands of bottled MMS products. The drums carried warnings that the contents were toxic, flammable, and dangerous to consume.¹ The Grenons sold tens of thousands of bottles nationwide and took in more than $1 million.²

The disease claims were sweeping. Church materials pitched MMS as a treatment for COVID-19, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, autism, malaria, hepatitis, Parkinson’s, herpes, and leukemia — roughly 95 percent of known diseases, according to prosecutors.⁶ Mark Grenon later acknowledged that the organization was a “non-religious church” created specifically to “legalize the use of MMS” and shield its operators from prosecution.²

Use on Children With Autism

One of the movement’s most damaging offshoots targeted autistic children. Protocols promoted by author Kerri Rivera and by followers of the Genesis II Church directed parents to give autistic children chlorine dioxide up to sixteen times a day and to administer multiple daily enemas with the substance.⁴ Parents in private Facebook groups reported severe rashes, bloody stools, lesions, seizures, and vomiting. A three-year-old showed signs of possible liver damage after ten doses per day.⁷ The FDA’s adverse-event reporting system documented a six-year-old autistic girl hospitalized with liver failure linked to chlorine dioxide. In Indianapolis, a father reported his wife to police in 2018 for giving the substance to their two-year-old daughter; Child Protective Services removed the child, who developed a full-body rash that took months to heal.

Volunteer activists Melissa Eaton and Amanda Seigler reported more than 100 parents to Child Protective Services agencies starting in 2016, using evidence they gathered from monitoring private online groups whose moderators had coached parents to conceal the protocols from doctors, teachers, and social workers.⁴ In 2015, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan compelled Rivera to sign an agreement barring her from selling products or holding seminars in the state, calling the treatment a “terrible scam” with no scientific evidence behind it.⁸

The COVID-19 Pivot and the Government Response

The Grenons moved fast when the pandemic began. In a March 8, 2020 G2Voice broadcast, Mark and Joseph declared coronavirus “curable” and pushed their dosing protocols. Church websites carried testimonials, including one about an 85-year-old man on oxygen who supposedly recovered after taking MMS, and instructed adults to take six-drop doses every two hours.⁹

Regulators moved quickly. On April 8, 2020, the FDA and FTC issued a joint warning letter citing violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the FTC Act, demanding the church stop selling unapproved COVID-19 products and respond within 48 hours.⁹ A week later, New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered the church to stop marketing the products as COVID-19 treatments, citing state consumer-protection law.¹⁰ The Justice Department filed a civil complaint on April 16, and U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams entered an ex parte temporary restraining order the next day. A permanent injunction followed on July 9, 2020, granted by default after the defendants refused to participate.¹¹

The Grenons openly defied every order. In writings later cited in court filings, they told the government, “We are NOT under your authority” and “We will NOT stop our Church Sacraments.” They threatened the presiding federal judge and said they would “pick up guns” and instigate “a Waco” if the government tried to enforce the orders.¹

Arrests, Trial, and Sentencing

Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were arrested in the United States. Mark and Joseph were in Colombia, from which they had kept shipping MMS abroad, and Colombian authorities arrested them in Santa Marta on August 11, 2020.¹² Prosecutors reported that seven Americans had died from using the product.¹³ Extradition took about two years; Mark Grenon made his initial appearance in Miami federal court on July 28, 2022.¹⁴ As a condition of extradition, criminal contempt charges against Mark and Joseph were dropped.¹⁵

All four were charged in the Southern District of Florida (Case No. 21-cr-20242) with conspiracy to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug. Jonathan and Jordan also faced criminal contempt charges for violating the 2020 civil injunctions.¹ The defendants represented themselves. The trial lasted two days in the summer of 2023, and on July 21 the jury found all four guilty on all counts.¹⁶ The jury saw photos and video of the backyard shed, the labeled toxic drums, evidence that the “donations” were sales prices, and evidence of the threats against the judge.

Sentences came down on October 6, 2023:

Jonathan Grenon, 37: 151 months (about 12 years and 7 months), for conspiracy and criminal contempt.
Jordan Grenon, 29: 151 months, for conspiracy and criminal contempt.
Mark Grenon, 66: 60 months, the statutory maximum on the conspiracy charge.
Joseph Grenon, 36: 60 months, the statutory maximum on the conspiracy charge.¹

Jonathan and Jordan received the longer terms because of the additional contempt convictions, tied to their continued distribution of MMS after the civil injunctions and their threats against the judge.¹⁷

Appeals and the Religious-Freedom Argument

Jonathan Grenon appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Case No. 23-13478), arguing that his prosecution violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment and that chlorine dioxide was a “sacrament” used to spread the gospel.¹⁸

On December 22, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the convictions in an unpublished opinion, holding that Grenon had failed to preserve his RFRA defense because he never expressly cited the statute at trial. General references to the First Amendment and religious freedom, the court concluded, did not put the district court on notice that RFRA was being invoked. Reviewing only for plain error, the panel found none. Rehearing en banc was denied in March 2026, and as of mid-2026 Jonathan Grenon has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari, arguing that his pro se filings should have been construed liberally to encompass RFRA protection.¹⁸

No court has recognized MMS distribution as protected religious activity. In the civil case, the defendants declared the FDA had no authority over their “Free Church” and asserted they could “say cure, heal, and treat” without government approval, but the district court never reached those arguments on the merits, entering default judgment after the defendants refused to participate.¹¹ In the criminal case, the district court instructed the jury that the First Amendment provided no defense.¹⁸

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Leaders of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing Who Sold Toxic Bleach as Fake Miracle Cure
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Leader of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing Who Sold Toxic Bleach as Fake Miracle Cure
3
FDA. Leaders of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing Who Sold Toxic Bleach
4
NBC News. Moms Go Undercover to Fight Fake Autism Cures in Private Facebook Groups
5
ABC News. Shameless High Priests of Snake Oil Offer Miracle Cures
6
CBS News. Florida Family Sentenced to Prison for Selling Bleach as Fake COVID-19 Cure
7
Business Insider. MMS Bleach Autism Cure
8
NBC Chicago. Illinois Attorney General Miracle Mineral Solution Autism
9
FDA. Warning Letter to Genesis 2 Church
10
New York Attorney General. AG James Continues Enforcement Actions During COVID-19 Pandemic
11
FindLaw. United States v. Genesis II Church of Health and Healing
12
The Guardian. Archbishop of Florida Church Selling Bleach as Miracle Cure Arrested With Son
13
VOA News. Two US Men Charged With Selling Bogus COVID-19 Cure Arrested in Colombia
14
CBS News. Mark Grenon Bleach as COVID Cure Extradited to US
15
Upper Michigan’s Source (AP). Four Members of Florida Family Are Sentenced for Selling Fake COVID-19 Cure Through Online Church
16
FDA. Leaders of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing Who Sold Toxic Bleach as Fake Miracle Cure
17
New York Times. Toxic Miracle Mineral Solution Sentencing
18
Supreme Court of the United States. Grenon Petition for Writ of Certiorari