Amazon, Autism, and Abuse: Why Harmful 'Cure' Books Must Be Removed

The following article contains information and images that may be distressing for some.

Sep 06, 2025

Amazon continues to platform dangerous books that promote pseudoscientific and abusive practices under the guise of “curing” autism. These texts are misleading and actively harmful, encouraging parents to subject autistic children to toxic substances such as chlorine dioxide (CD), commonly known as industrial bleach. Despite repeated campaigning, protests, and petitions, Amazon has failed to act decisively to remove these titles.

View Full Petition With Over 37,000 Signatures

Statement from Autistic Inclusive Meets (AIM)

We at Autistic Inclusive Meets are appalled at the uncaring dismissive attitude of Amazon.
They have shown they have no regard for public safety as they continue to platform these harmful books that we have proven cause harm on Autistic children.
One child nearly died here in the UK after following advice from the Nemecheck Protocol, he was put into intensive care after being put onto inulin, camel’s milk and high concentrates of olive and fish oil in 2017.
We ask again that they consider meeting with us to discuss the dangerous literature they are giving a platform to.

Click Here For Autistic Inclusive Meets Website

Amazon’s Own Policies Are Being Violated

Amazon’s guidelines explicitly prohibit content that promotes dangerous products or medical misinformation. These harmful books clearly violate multiple policies:

Offensive Content Policy: Prohibits content that promotes discrimination, hate, or violence. Titles that frame autism as a disease or worse than cancer are inherently ableist and discriminatory.
Restricted Products Policy: Prohibits products that are unsafe or promote unsafe medical practices. Books advocating for chlorine dioxide enemas and other quack remedies breach this directly.
Medical Misinformation Policy: Amazon has removed vaccine misinformation in the past, but continues to host books making false claims about autism being curable or caused by vaccines.

By keeping these titles available, Amazon is in breach of its own commitments to consumer safety and responsible publishing.

Images of the Kerri Rivera book still available on Amazon

The Prevalance of Fake Cure Groups

The books are only the tip of the iceberg. Online groups and communities continue to promote these abusive practices, often using encrypted platforms like Telegram. These groups normalise the use of bleach enemas, restrictive diets, and toxic substances under the guise of detoxification. Parents are encouraged to dismiss signs of poisoning such as vomiting, rashes, and pain as positive signs of “healing”. Screenshots from inside these groups reveal the sheer scale of harm and misinformation being spread.

Screenshots taken from within Kerri Rivera's Telegram group about administering the CD Protocol.

The Global Ecosystem of Fake Autism “Cures”

Amazon’s continued sale of cure books does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a wider ecosystem of pseudoscience; one that stretches from Facebook groups to religious cults, from private Telegram channels to glossy “wellness” conferences. Together, these groups promote dangerous, unverified interventions and create an atmosphere in which Autistic people are treated as problems to be eradicated.

Chlorine Dioxide / MMS (Miracle Mineral Supplement)

The most notorious of these “cures” is chlorine dioxide bleach, rebranded as Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS). Despite repeated government warnings, communities on Telegram and Facebook continue to share recipes for bleach enemas and oral doses, claiming they detoxify children of autism. Investigations have traced a 15,000% rise in Telegram posts pushing false autism cures in Latin America, while media exposés have revealed children hospitalized and even killed by these protocols.

Instructions on the administration of Chlorine Dioxide.

Detox and Zeolite Groups

A Facebook group with nearly 27,000 members promotes Pure Body Extra (PBX), a zeolite spray falsely advertised as an autism cure. Parents have reported painful side effects in children including diarrhoea, severe acne, mood changes, and more, yet moderators dismiss these as signs that the “detox” is working.

Anti-Vaccine Organisations and Biomedical Movements

Groups like Generation Rescue, once a flagship for celebrity-driven anti-vaccine rhetoric, promoted chelation, hyperbaric oxygen, and dietary interventions as autism “treatments”. Although some organisations have folded, their legacy lives on in cure culture, legitimising pseudoscience that Amazon continues to host.

Chelation Therapy

Chelation therapy is another dangerous intervention pushed as an autism cure. It involves administering chemical agents to “flush” heavy metals from the body based on the discredited myth that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines. Not only is this scientifically baseless, but it is also dangerous. Children subjected to chelation can suffer kidney damage and even death. In 2005, a five-year-old autistic boy in the United States died during chelation therapy when his heart stopped after being given the chemical agent EDTA. Despite this, books and online groups continue to frame chelation as a viable autism treatment, further fuelling the cycle of harm.

CEASE Therapy

Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression (CEASE therapy) is a homeopathic “detox” regime that has been banned or restricted by regulators in the UK, Netherlands, and Canada. Despite official warnings, CEASE therapists continue to advertise treatments online, framing autism as a toxic injury to be reversed.

Religious Exploitation

The Church of Signs and Wonders in Australia promoted leaflets claiming that autism could be cured through exorcism and “deliverance from witchcraft”. This illustrates how cure culture crosses into spiritual abuse, with families targeted through faith-based manipulation.

Why It Matters

The persistence of these movements shows that Amazon is not simply hosting a few rogue titles it is feeding a global pipeline of abuse. By selling books that echo these ideologies, Amazon legitimises them, amplifies them through its recommendation algorithms, and profits from their spread.

Amazon Must Act

Autism is not a disease. It does not need curing. Every day that Amazon allows these books to remain on its platform, it enables abuse and misinformation. It is time for Amazon to uphold its own policies, listen to Autistic voices, and remove these harmful titles permanently.

Failure to do so is not neutrality, it is complicity in harm.

Buy David A Coffee