“BOO, which 'can be taken by anyone at any age, as well as animals,' according to the company, claims many benefits and uses, including improved brain function and heart health, and ridding the body of so-called toxins that include heavy metals, pesticides and parasites.
“Put more simply, the product is dirt – four-and-a-half ounces of it, sealed in a sleek black plastic baggie and sold for $110 plus shipping. Visitors to the Black Oxygen Organics website, recently taken offline, were greeted with a pair of white hands cradling cups of dirt like an offering. 'A gift from the Ground,' it reads. 'Drink it. Wear it. Bathe in it.'”
(Brandy Zadrozny.“'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM.” NBC News. December 02, 2021.)
According to Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News, the social media posts started in May: “photos and videos of smiling people, mostly women, drinking Mason jars of black liquid, slathering black paste on their faces and feet, or dipping babies and dogs in tubs of the black water.”
Black Oxygen Organics, or “BOO” for short, was marketed as fulvic acid, a compound derived from decayed plants, that was dug up from an Ontario peat bog. The website of the Canadian company that sold it billed it as “the end product and smallest particle of the decomposition of ancient, organic matter.”
Zadrozny reports the Internet and the unprecedented times fueled sales for the dirt …
“By the end of the summer, online ads for BOO had made their way to millions of people within the internet subcultures that embrace fringe supplements, including the mixed martial arts community, anti-vaccine and Covid-denier groups, and finally more general alternative health and fake cure spaces.
“And people seemed to be buying; parts of TikTok and Instagram were flooded with #BOO posts. The businessman behind Black Oxygen Organics has been selling mud in various forms for 25 years now, but BOO sold in amounts that surprised even its own executives, according to videos of company meetings viewed by NBC News.
“The stars appeared aligned for it. A pandemic marked by unprecedented and politicized misinformation has spurred a revival in wonder cures. Well-connected Facebook groups of alternative health seekers and vaccine skeptics provided an audience and eager customer base for a new kind of medicine show. And the too-good-to-be-true testimonials posted to social media attracted a wave of direct sellers, many of them women dipping their toes into the often unprofitable world of multilevel marketing for the first time.”
(Brandy Zadrozny.“'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM.” NBC News. December 02, 2021.)
NBC News found that the company had attracted 21,000 sellers and 38,000 new customers within months. Within six months, sales had rocketed from $200,000 a month to nearly $4 million, Black Oxygen Organics’ vice president of business development, Ron Montarul said, referring to a chart that showed the same.
The boom for Black Oxygen Organics was created by multilevel marketing (MLM) – a type of top-down and widening profit-modeled business, a so-called “pyramid scheme.” BOO couldn't be bought in stores. The pills and powders were sold by individuals, who were supposed to profit not only off their sales but also off those sales of others they recruited.
A common strategy for MLM participants, including BOO sellers, is to create Facebook groups to collaborate and attract new customers.
“I earned $21,000 in bonuses in my first 5 weeks!” one post read. “I am a single mom, 1 income family, this business was the best decision!!!”
But, the sad truth is more than 99% of MLM sellers lose money according to the Consumer Awareness Institute, an industry watchdog group.
Canadian and U.S. health regulators cracked down on BOO in recent months, initiating recalls and product holds at the border, respectively. Online skeptics threatened to shut it down. There’s a network of online anti-MLM activists who use Facebook and YouTube to expose MLMs and they did that with BOO, too.
Health Canada announced a recall of Black Oxygen Organic’s products on September 23, 2021. And a federal lawsuit in the U.S. was filed in Georgia’s Northern District court seeking class action status.
Zadrozny writes:
"The complaint, filed on behalf of four Georgia residents who purchased BOO, claims that the company negligently sold a product with 'dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals,' which led to physical and economic harm.”
So, just before Thanksgiving, the company announced in an email it was closing.
Zadrozny reports, “Sellers packed video calls mourning the death of their miracle cure, railing against executives who had taken their money and seemingly run, and wondering how they might recoup the thousands of dollars they paid for BOO that never arrived.”
(Brandy Zadrozny.“'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM.” NBC News. December 02, 2021.)
One of the most haltingly successful companies to ride a wave of interest in online and directly sold alternative medicines bit the dust (excuse the pun, please).
Snake Oil Fever
Just how far are people willing to dig to find their miracle cure? The testimonies on the BOO Facebook group read of fantastic results including cured diseases, weight loss, clearer skin, whiter teeth, regrown hair, reclaimed energy, expelled worms and even changes in eye color (from brown to blue).
The “true believers” online praised what they called “magic dirt.” They drank it; snorted it; cooked with it; and slathered it on the bodies, giving it to their families, children, and pets.
One user posted a photo of a baby sitting in a bathtub of water colored a deep caramel. In the caption, she shared that the baby had contracted hand, foot and mouth disease – a virus that mainly affects children and causes painful sores. “Tiny is enjoying his BOO bath!” she wrote. “We’re happy to say our bottom feels happier and we’re in a better mood!”
(Brandy Zadrozny.“'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM.” NBC News. December 02, 2021.)
Testimonials claimed BOO could cure everything from autism to cancer to Alzheimer’s disease. And, evidently, the times were right for hooking customers into miracle cures. You guessed it: As the anti/de-vax movement grew in the US and Canada, BOO proponents said it also protected against and treated Covid-19 and could be used to “detox” the newly vaccinated, according to posts viewed by NBC News.
But, other people like Monica Wong started having reservations about her BOO consumption. She started having stomach pains after drinking BOO religiously for a few months. Wong quit taking the product and told the head of her Facebook group about her pains; however, group administrators, BOO sellers themselves, censored the comments to weed out anything negative. “They’d never let me post that,” she said.
What's the Real “Dirt” On BOO?
Black Oxygen Organics is the brainchild of founder and CEO Marc Saint-Onge, a 59-year-old entrepreneur from Casselman, Ontario. He calls himself “the Mudman.” – he's sold mud in some form since the early 1990s. He billed his expertise as an orthotherapist, naturopath, kinesitherapist, reiki master, holistic practitioner, herbalist and aromatherapist.
As he practice orthotherapy – a kind of advanced massage technique – Saint-Onge packaged dirt from a local bog, branches and leaves included, in zip-lock baggies and gave them to his “patients,” who demanded the mud faster than he could scoop it. For doing this, he was charged by Canadian authorities with practicing medicine without a license in 1989 and fined $20,000. That's when his clinic went underground.
(Brandy Zadrozny.“'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM.” NBC News. December 02, 2021.)
The company’s now-defunct website indicates Saint-Onge scoured the peat bogs of Canada to find the best, most pristine dirt full of fulvic acid (that’s the “magic” ingredient) He then packaged that dirt in 4-ounce bags, as pills, or bottles of mud for about $100 a pop.
If fulvic acid has any health benefits at all, why would people buy such a supplement from a company promoting it with multilevel marketing schemes and unfounded claims that it is a miracle cure for everything that ails them? It's the old scam of selling snake oil to the vulnerable and desperate. God knows the political and medical climates of 2021 present ideal conditions for the spread of conspiracies and untruths. An audience of the gullible is readily at hand and hungry to consume quackery of any kind.
The moral of the story? Jen Maravegias of Pajiba says, “Nothing can stop those people. Maybe we should just let them eat dirt. The lengths to which Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers, and de-vaxxers are willing to go just to avoid getting a shot in the arm continues to be astounding.” It appears the MAGA, COVID-denying, anti-science crowd’s activities – they won’t wear masks; they won’t get the vaccine; but they blame the government for not being able to put an end to the pandemic – include the belief that eating dirt is good for you. Bon Appétit!
(Jen Maravegias. “Can I Interest You In Some Magic Beans To Go With That Dirt?” Pajiba News. December 03, 2021.)
Considering eating dirt? It's actually the plot of a famous story -- the story of the infant Krishna, wrongly accused of eating a bit of dirt.
This poem tells story of the Hindu mythical hero Krishna who is accused by his mother Yashoda of eating dirt. She comes up to him with a wagging finger and scolds him: “You shouldn't eat dirt, you naughty boy.”
“But I haven't,” says the unchallenged lord of all and everything, disguised as a frightened human child. Then, Krishna opens his mouth, and within it, Yashoda is said to have witnessed the three worlds and the secret of the entire universe. She is said to have taken this as a revelation of his divinity.
Eating Dirt
her famished tongue
feasted on dreams
and she catered to its cravings—
green
mangoes clay cloying chalk
citrus soap crusty coal raw rice
crushed ice cubes crayons ash
powdered glass pickled garlic
salt sieved rain-scented soil
a son was born, he was fed
and he learnt to feed
soon he was caught eating mud
a son
taking after his mother
a son inheriting her tongue
she
tied her speechless moon to a millstone
and after some frantic
spanking
she saw in his cloudy mouth
the truth of the three
worlds—
sand everywhere, everything
turning to sand.
Meena Kandasamy
