Monday, April 4, 2011

In Defense of Colloidal Silver Nanoparticles: It’s Time to Kick Some Environmentalist Butt

How can the radical environmentalists continue to oppose hugely beneficial breakthroughs in the use of colloidal silver nanoparticles -- even when those breakthroughs could save millions of lives and billions of dollars in health care costs?
Some weeks back I wrote an article titled Paper Embedded With Colloidal Silver Nanoparticles Could Help Resolve Food-Borne Illness and Disease
-- in which I explained that one of the biggest threats to the health and well-being of your family today is the growing contamination of the U.S. meat supply with potentially deadly infectious microbes such as MRSA.
I also pointed out that scientists in Israel have now developed a special type of paper food wrap embedded with colloidal silver nanoparticles…
…an innovation that could be of immense value in helping stop the scourge of food-borne illness and disease that costs billions of dollars annually and kills tens of thousands of people here in the U.S and millions more around the world.
I also predicted that radical environmentalists would vehemently oppose this new breakthrough technology, and would once again claim that the use of silver in commercial products is a dire threat to the environment and a potential health threat to mankind as well.
Treehuggers Never Fail to Disappoint
As if on cue, a few days later the anti-silver barrage by environmentalists started in earnest.
It began with an article on Treehugger.com (no, I’m not kidding, that’s the actual name of the web site) by Christine Lepisto.
According to her bio, she’s a specialist in “corporate environmental responsibility” (read: stopping new business innovations from getting to market by claiming they’re harmful to the environment)…
…coupled with “realistic economic competitiveness” (read: making sure companies go broke from environmental impact reports and regulations before they can get a new product to market).
Ms. Lepisto took a cue from another article on the subject published on FastCompany.com, dubbing the new breakthrough in silver nanoparticle-based food wrapping as “killer paper.” And true to form, she warned ominously and in ponderous language only an environmental bureaucrat could understand that silver coated butcher paper was (oh my!) laden with hidden risks.
She wrote:
A review of the current state of nanotechnology risk assessment done by the Scientific Committee of the European Food Safety Authority paints a picture of a field in which product technology is outstripping the advances in risk analysis methods necessary to even understand and assess the risks.
In the case of silver nanoparticles, for example, there are many chemical methods to measure the amount of silver exposure.
But figuring out how much of that silver is normal and how much is nano is much harder: it requires imaging technologies rather than mere chemical identification.
And whereas chemical methods typically allow us to measure chemical exposures down to parts per million and even parts per billion levels quite reliably, looking for one nanoparticle part per million is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Did you get that? Yeah, me neither.
Ms. Lepisto doesn’t even seem to understand that the term “parts per million” is a designation of the total weight of silver in a given amount of liquid solution, rather than the number or size of actual silver particles.
But I think she’s trying to say that while her tree hugger friends can’t find any real risks from the use of colloidal silver nanoparticles, they nevertheless believe businesses shouldn’t be allowed to use them. At least, that’s the gist of it.
Ms. Lepisto continues, “Unfortunately, although the science is not yet advanced enough to make good risk assessments, there are already enough products in everyday use that studies are finding silver nanoparticles in waste water sludge. If killer paper does join the crowd, it will be just one more cat out of the bag.”
Oh, my. We can’t have that now, can we? After all, there are way too many cats in the world, as it is. And we certainly don’t want them jumping out of the bag and traipsing around in wastewater sludge.
And yes, I’m being facetious. It’s hard to remain serious when you’re reading such pseudo-scientific drivel.
Propaganda
Our intrepid tree hugger, Ms. Lepisto, also pointed out:
The antibacterial activity of the paper could make it useful as a food packaging which could extend shelf life by killing the bacteria that accelerate deterioration. But are the benefits of less food waste really worth the risks of yet more nanoparticles in the products we buy?
Frankly, that statement galls me to no end, because what our tree hugging sensationalist is doing is using a propaganda technique called “re-framing the argument.”
That’s where you ignore the main case for the use of an innovation, and instead re-frame the argument toward something that makes the innovation seem frivolous at best.
Here, Ms. Lepisto completely ignores the idea that the new innovation in silver-impregnated food wrap could help save millions of lives from food-borne illness and disease, and billions of dollars annually in health care costs.
Instead, she implies that the only real use for the new breakthrough is adding a few extra days of freshness to the tomatoes and cucumbers in your refrigerator.
Hey...we can’t have fresher foods at the risk of silver nanoparticles getting into our wastewater sludge and harming all of those cats, now can we?
Okay, enough silliness. But do you see my point? She might as well have said:
“Don’t worry a bit about the 4-6 million people each year who die from food poisoning worldwide…
…or the hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs spent each year on food-borne infectious illness and disease…
…or the fact that brand new studies (see here and here) have shown the U.S. meat supply to be contaminated with the deadly MRSA pathogen. Nosiree. Those things don’t matter.
What matters, you evil, filthy, useless eater, is that you might risk spreading a few silver nanoparticles into the environment trying to keep your lettuce fresher. And that would be a tragedy.”
Ms. Lepisto ends her article by calling for “strict regulations that allow only those nano-products which are truly justified by the benefits even though the risks are not fully understood.”
Ahh, yes. Endless government regulations. That’s what we need more of.
We have millions of people dying annually from food-borne illness and disease worldwide, and billions of dollars in health care costs being spent annually to treat those food-borne illnesses.
Yet the best solution the environmentalists can come up with is this: Restrict the very innovations that could help solve the food-borne infectious disease crisis quickly, effectively and inexpensively.
Finally, our tree-hugging corporation-hater concludes:
Government funding should be focused predominantly on the science of nano-risk characterization, because private money for these promising technologies will tend more towards the product innovation side of the equation.”
In other words, government should spend more and more money digging up reasons to oppose silver nanoparticles, because evil corporations will probably find even more beneficial and innovative ways to use them, and we must put a stop this at all costs.
It’s like a bad episode of Star Trek coupled with the Twilight Zone: “Dammit Jim, we can’t have people living long healthy lives. They’re a threat to the environment -- them, and those freaking cats crawling around in the wastewater plants.”
The Propaganda Spreads
Of course, it didn’t take long for Ms. Lepisto’s fellow enviro-nuts around the world to either reprint or link to her article from their own web sites, including:
GreenDesignHQ.com
GreenAgenda.info
EnvironmentGuru.com
HumanitarianNews.com
EcoFriendlyMag.com
GardenWindmill.BrightPlanet.org
GreenDump.net
Earth-List.com
GetEcoNow.com
GreenAppleHorse.com
GreenXpert.org
Etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Then, the various blog feeds and internet newsfeeds began picking up on Ms. Lepisto’s scary story, further spreading it around the internet.
I even found Ms. Lepisto’s article on a website called ChoiceVacuums.com, which, yes, sells vacuum cleaners! Go figure. (I didn’t bother to check whether or not they were environmentally friendly vacuum cleaners.)
Now You Know
So now you know how good people get fooled into opposing beneficial breakthroughs utilizing colloidal silver nanoparticles -- even when those breakthroughs could save millions of lives and billions of dollars in health care costs.
The radical environmentalist network simply springs into action, spreading the latest propaganda effort far and wide, until it has saturated the internet.
Everywhere you go on the internet you see the article claiming silver nanoparticles are a threat to the environment. So you think to yourself, “Silver must be bad.” After all, it says so all over the internet!” (To quote late night comedian Craig Ferguson, “If it’s writ down, it must be true!”)
In reality, it’s a propaganda technique called “saturation bombing,” and of course, it unfortunately works like magic.
Indeed, yesterday, on one of my favorite natural health web sites (HealthierTalk.com) I came across an article on the silver-coated food wrapping paper, written by the normally astute natural health advocate Alice Wessendorf.
Great, I thought. Wessendorf is staunch promoter of natural health. A real gem. One of the best. Finally, someone will come to the defense of silver nanoparticles. After all, what could possibly be more natural (and effective) at stopping the spread of food-borne illness than pure silver?
Unfortunately, her article was full of the same doom-and-gloom conjecture and unfounded speculation against silver that’s been so typical of radical environmentalists like Ms. Lepisto over the past few years.
Instead of defending silver, Wessendorf spins a tale of a scary “superbug” catastrophe which ends in nothing less than a massive environmental disaster.
Has she been influenced by the shrill cries of the anti-silver environmentalists like Ms. Lepisto? I don’t know. But from the tone of her article, I can’t help but believe she has been.
Is There Any Weight to These Claims Against Silver Nanoparticles?
Wessendorf speculates that this silver-lined food wrapping paper and other commercial products that utilize antimicrobial silver will one day be responsible for causing a massive environmental catastrophe.
Yet she offers no evidence whatsoever to back up her claim. Instead, she rather simplistically states regarding the trend toward using silver nanoparticles in commercial products such as food packaging, clothing and appliances to help prevent the spread of infection:

And, of course, we mustn’t forget that should we continue down this path all the food packaging, old clothing, and appliances that we add to our landfills every year will eventually be leeching silver nanoparticles into our soil and waterways. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen!
Scary stuff, right?
But what she fails to reveal is the simple fact that the silver came from the environment in the first place.
What’s more, upon return to the environment, silver nanoparticles tend to bond rapidly with salts and other organic materials they come into contact with, losing their potent antimicrobial nanoparticle attributes in the process, and essentially becoming inert.
This is why oceans, rivers, streams and even soil with heavy silver content nevertheless teem with abundant animal life and verdant plant life. In the environment, silver’s toxicity to microorganisms is essentially neutralized by the process of aggregation with other minerals and organic substances.
Indeed, the bonding of the tiny particles of silver with other materials in the environment makes it about as toxic as…well…dirt.
As Dr. Rosalind Volpe of the Silver Nanotechnology Working Group has repeatedly explained:
…whenever silver nano-particles leach from products they are embedded in, such as diabetic foot stockings, or computer keyboards, or whatever –

-- they almost immediately begin to bond (in a process called “agglomeration”) with salts, minerals and other substances in their immediate environment, forming larger particle agglomerates.

Thus, once released into the environment the tiny silver nano-particles completely lose their nano-scale properties, becoming essentially inert.”
In other words, silver nanoparticles released into the environment become bound silver (i.e., bound to salts, minerals and other organic substances) rather than free silver, and at that point have basically no nanoparticle characteristics whatsoever –
-- which means they can’t harm tiny critters in the environment any more than sand can.
Of course, this flies directly into the face of Wessendorf’s scary contentions that silver nanoparticles escaping from commercial products will ultimately destroy the environment.
The Evidence Against Silver?
The only evidence Wessendorf cites for her sensationalistic contentions is a preliminary Duke University study conducted by researchers working for –
-- what else? -- another environmental organization called the Center for the Environmental Implications in NanoTechnology.
Wow…the environmentalists now have an entire Center just for implications in nanotechnology.
Maybe we need to open a new Center for implications in environmental hucksterism.
At any rate, the bottom line is that the Duke study was run by environmentalists who were already skewed against nano-technology –
-- so you probably wouldn’t be too far off-base in thinking they just might have had a vested interest in conducting a study with a preconceived outcome. (My opinion.)
I’ve already refuted the main arguments of the Duke University study in an article here. So I won’t bother to go over that ground again.
Suffice it to say that if you saturate anything in a strong enough concentration of silver nanoparticles you can eventually reach a level that will cause harm to the object being saturated – whether plant, animal, or, yes, even human.
This is much the same as the infamous Fathead Minnow study, in which environmentalists saturated Fathead Minnows in increasingly higher levels of silver nanoparticles, and then sonicated the water so that the silver couldn’t settle to the bottom of the aquarium.
In other words, the poor minnows had to live and function in an artificial laboratory environment saturated in silver nanopartilces everywhere they swam – not the type of environment they’d ever find in nature.
And what happened?
Well, the poor little minnows became sick from the excessive saturation with silver nanoparticles.
The human equivalent would be like guzzling a gallon of colloidal silver a day, as well as breathing high levels of silver dust being kicked up into the air around you all day.
Naturally, the internet news headlines announcing the Fathead Minnow study screamed: “Silver Nanoparticles Found Harmful to Fish!”
Of course, as I’ve pointed out earlier, silver nanoparticles simply don’t exist in the environment in a form that could harm plants or animals – and especially not at the excessively high levels used by the environmentalists in their little laboratory experiments.
So when environmentalists purposely saturate a plant or a minnow or some other living thing with excessive levels of raw silver nanoparticles, and then claim it harmed them, they’re being rather disingenuous.
Indeed, you could claim exactly the same harm from saturating a plant or animal with excessive levels of water. (It’s called drowning.) Or with excessive levels of iron. Or with excessive levels of copper. Or ground up glass. Or any other material, for that matter.
They’re all potentially harmful at some level, in some concentration, and in some particular form.
But just because you can harm a plant by saturating it with high levels of copper or iron or ground up glass, doesn’t mean you’re going to run out and –
-- ban the use of copper wiring in electronics and machinery, or ban iron hammers, or ban glass windows out of fear that one day the offending material will leach into the environment and harm a plant, animal or a microbe.
It’s ridiculous at face value.
What Do The Environmentalists Get Out of All of This Anti-Silver Hucksterism?
So why are the environmentalists so all-fired set to make a boogie-man out of silver nanoparticles?
Well, there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to be made in forcing Big Business to purchase expensive licenses to use silver in their products, and to conduct costly environmental impact studies to prove their silver-based products won’t “harm the environment.”
And of course, if the environmentalists can get the EPA to view silver as an environmental toxin akin to lead or mercury, and force them to pass stricter laws regulating the use of silver nanoparticles in commercial products –
-- then eventually they’ll get to run the organizations Big Business will have to turn to in order to get all of those expensive environmental impact studies conducted, at a cost of millions of dollars apiece.
Nice work, if you can get it.
But before you can justify forcing businesses to participate in this kind of bureaucratic shake-down, you have to come up with some evidence demonstrating a legitimate environmental danger.
That’s where the environmentalists try so hard, yet fall so far short, as anyone who has followed my occasional articles on this subject are aware by now.
The radical anti-silver environmentalists can’t find a single real-life instance of silver nanoparticles harming the environment. So they conduct controlled laboratory studies completely out of context with what actually happens to silver in the environment –
-- and then use the results of those stacked and controlled studies to spin sensationalistic yarns about the horrific environmental dangers of silver nanoparticles.
Are Silver Nanoparticles a New Invention?
One of their most egregious propaganda tactics is to make silver nanoparticles sound like a brand new development that big business is incorporating helter-skelter into their products with no thought whatsoever to any possible harm to the environment.
But of course there’s nothing new about the existence of silver nanoparticles or their use in commercial applications.
Indeed, what’s new is the growing need for them, thanks to the infectious disease crisis caused by the failure of Big Pharma’s synthetic antibiotic drugs.
A silver nanoparticle is simply a silver particle between one and one hundred nanometers in size. So we’ve had silver nanoparticles since shortly after Edison harnessed electricity in the late 1800’s and researchers began running electrical currents through silver rods submerged in water to see what would happen.
(Other scientists used chemical means of reduction to accomplish the same purpose.)
In fact, according to Dr. Murray J. Height of the Silver Nanotechnology Working Group (SNWG), silver nanoparticles have now been registered with federal agencies for over six decades, and have been manufactured for over 100 years.
Indeed, the very first nanosilver product to be federally registered -- Silver Algaedyn, a product designed to control algae buildup in swimming pools – was registered under the FIFRA Act in 1954…a full 16 years before the official establishment of the EPA!
In other words, in the U.S. (and around the world) not only have silver nanoparticles been in fairly widespread use since the 1950s in swimming pools and spas, water treatment plants and other commercial uses –
-- they’ve been used without causing even the remotest semblance of an environmental catastrophe anywhere. Not even a hint of one!
But all of this is lost on the modern-day environmental Chicken Littles who run around screaming “the sky is falling” every time a researcher demonstrates a beneficial new application for antimicrobial silver nanoparticles like the silver-coated food wrapping paper.
Can Pathogens Develop Silver Resistance?
Indeed, in her article touting the supposed dangers of the silver-coated food wrapping paper, Wessendorf closely toes the environmentalist line by stating:
You see, just as the overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products has spawned antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA and C. diff, the overuse of silver nanoparticles may very well do the same.
Again, no evidence for this claim. It’s just rank speculation. It’s propagandistic sensationalism, straight from the Chicken Little School of Scaring the Bejabbers Out of the General Public.
What does real science say about the potential for creating silver-resistance in pathogenic microbes?
As stated by silver researcher S.M. Foran, writing in Therapeutic Properties of Silver: an Historical and Technical Review:
"Another benefit to using silver is that it does not appear to create the same amount of resistance in bacteria as traditional antibiotics.

Ian Chopra, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Leeds, reported in a 2007 article in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy that there are fewer than twenty published reports of silver resistance in bacteria...

…Professor Chopra went on to indicate that 'current evidence suggests the clinical threat [due to silver resistance] is low' because of the 'multifaceted mode of action of the silver ion.'’

Infectious disease specialist Dr. David Weber agrees that silver use in commercial products poses very little danger of creating silver-resistant microbes. As explained in the Los Angeles Times, in August of 2008:
“…Dr. David Weber, an infectious disease and public health expert at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, isn't convinced that silver resistance will prove much of a problem.
Resistance to antibiotics occurs quite readily in bacteria once prolonged exposure to, say, penicillin, occurs. But there's little reason to suppose that resistance to silver would develop so easily, he says.
An antibiotic like penicillin works by hitting a bacterium in a limited fashion, at specific sites. Because the killing is done precisely, the bacterium has a good chance of developing a mutation that would confer resistance.
In contrast, silver kills microbes in a broad, unspecific fashion -- like tossing a bomb at a bacterium. It hits many essential points such as a bacterium's entire respiratory system. This makes it much more difficult for silver-resistance to develop.
And even if tolerance did develop, Weber says, increasing the dose of silver the bacterium is exposed to will solve the problem in most cases.”
In short, microbes simply don’t grow resistant to silver anywhere near as easily as they do to synthetic antibiotic drugs.

Silver is one of the small handful of powerful substances nature And it has worked very effectively for thousands of years. has provided for man to extract from the environment and use against pathogens.

What’s more, as noted earlier, upon silver’s return to the environment nature has its own way of neutralizing the antimicrobial effects of silver so that it causes no significant harm to the earth’s microflora that serve as an ecological base for plant and animal life.

Indeed, as I’ve pointed out many times the world’s oceans contain an estimated two million tons of trace silver. Yet those oceans are teeming with abundant life, both plant and animal.

Silver is Even Effective Against
Antibiotic-Resistant Pathogens

In addition to this, there is also much evidence to support the fact that silver is highly effective against pathogens that have already developed strong resistance to Big Pharma’s synthetic antibiotic drugs –

-- including MRSA, the deadly staph pathogen that is now beginning to contaminate the U.S. meat supply (see here and here).

This is another great reason environmentalists should drop their anti-silver charade and join in the pro-silver bandwagon.

According to biochemist James South, MA, “…it is widely reported in the medical literature that various forms of silver, often at surprisingly low concentrations, routinely kills germs that are known to be antibiotic-resistant."

And according to researcher J. B. Wright, writing in the American Journal of Infection Control,

“Silver, a well-known antimicrobial agent, has been used in clinical settings for more than a century.

During this period, the safety of this agent has been well established.
In addition to being effective against fungi, this method of silver application has also been demonstrated to be efficacious against a broad spectrum of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains.”

In short, not only is silver effective against drug-resistant pathogens, but in general it does not cause these pathogens to become silver-resistant.
Food-Borne Illnesses: A Real Threat
Finally, in her article against the use of silver nanoparticles in food wrapping paper and other commercial applications, Alice Wessendorf follows suit with environmentalist Christina Lepisto –
-- in completely ignoring the need for an effective solution to the growing crisis of food-borne illness that afflict between forty and sixty million people each year worldwide, and cause a reported four to six million annual deaths – a veritable holocaust of enormous proportions.
She also ignores the exorbitant cost involved in treating these conditions.
According to the newspaper USA Today in a March 2010 news article, treating food-borne illnesses in the U.S. alone cost well over $100 billion each year:
“Food-borne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion a year, a tab that works out to an average cost of $1,850 each time someone gets sick from food, a report by a former Food and Drug Administration economist says.

"A lot of people don't realize how expensive food-borne illnesses are," says Robert Scharff, a former FDA regulatory economist and now a professor of consumer science at Ohio State University.

"It's important for the public to understand the size of this problem."
The USA Today article continues:
“The three most expensive food-borne illnesses for the nation were campylobacter, common in poultry, at $18.8 billion in health costs; salmonella at $14.6 billion; and listeria at $8.8 billion. Both salmonella and listeria are found in multiple foods.

…All told, ‘consumers are spending $85 billion on the consequences of unsafe food for every $1 billion the government is spending to prevent it,’ says Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety coordinator for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

‘This report shows that if we could work to eliminate pathogens in common food products, it would go a long way toward reducing health care costs.’"
Yes, indeed, eliminating the pathogens in common food products would go a long way toward reducing health care costs. Your family’s health care costs, and mine, too.
Yet the most effective solution to this problem – safe, natural silver – is precisely what the environmentalists want to limit, severely regulate or even eliminate altogether.
Whose Side Are They Really On?
So whose side are the radical, anti-silver environmentalists really on?
The people they claim to protect?
Or the pathogens that are sickening and killing people by the millions each year?
Considering the fact that food-borne illnesses take far more lives than AIDS each year and cost well over a hundred billion dollars annually to treat in the U.S. alone –
-- you’d think the environmentalists would be lining up in droves to support the use of safe, natural silver and would be taking a bold stand against the death and devastation (both physical and financial) caused by food-borne illness.
Silver-lined food wrapping paper is just one tool in a growing arsenal of silver-based products being developed that can help combat the ever-expanding threat of contaminated food supplies.
But the environmentalists have their own little agenda going. And they don’t really seem to care that millions of people are getting sick and dying every year of food-borne illness.
Instead, they continue to throw propagandistic monkey wrenches into the development and implementation of the silver-based antimicrobial commercial products that could solve the burgeoning crisis in food-borne illness and disease.
We’ve seen this before, of course.
In 2004 silver nanoparticles were first set to be used as a substitute for the highly toxic copper chromide arsenate which is used as a preservative in wood used for building houses and other structures.
The primary components of this substance, of course, are chromium and arsenic, both cancer-causing toxins and environmental pollutants.
According to Jessica Cross, CEO of VM Group, silver was the leading contestant to replace the toxic chemicals, due to its non-carcinogenic qualities, and the fact that it dramatically inhibits the growth of mold and fungi in wood, and also kills termites that munch away at wooden constructions.
But some seven years later we’re still waiting for the breakthrough to be implemented… and the environment is still being contaminated with the cancer-causing wood preservatives –
-- all apparently out of pressure by environmentalists who don’t want silver being used.
So the environmentalists are actually causing real environmental damage by forcing the wood industry to continue to use toxic substances in wood preservation that it no longer wants to use –
-- so the sensationalistic theoretical environmental damage from silver can be “prevented”!
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that millions of human lives can be saved worldwide through the judicious use of silver nanoparticles in commercial applications such as food processing.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in health and medical costs could also be alleviated.
What’s more, the development of commercial products for the food processing industry using antimicrobial silver provide a viable natural alternative to harmful and dangerous practices like food irradiation or the use of potentially dangerous man-made chemicals on our food supplies.
Silver nanoparticle-based products are an effective natural solution to a genuine and extremely serious existing problem.
They also have an amazing safety history. Therefore, these products need to be green-lighted (no environmentalist pun intended) and implemented in every area of the world, rather than be attacked with sensationalistic claims and rank speculation.
So the next time you read some environmentalist screed on the internet railing against the supposed dangers of silver nanoparticles to the environment, be sure to take a moment to fire off a response.
Let them know how you feel about the way they’re using sky-is-falling sensationalism and rank speculation to prevent families like yours from enjoying the protective and potentially life-saving benefits of safe, natural silver nanoparticles in commercial products.
You might even want to explain that you recognize the very real and present danger involved in the growing spread of infectious disease, and therefore you appreciate the new developments in the use of antimicrobial silver –
-- and you resent the wild, sensationalistic claims being promulgated in an effort to prevent mankind from fully benefiting from this safe, highly effective technology.
Above all, be sure that you’re not one who is taken in by the pseudo-scientific drivel against silver-based antimicrobial products being spread throughout the media by the radical anti-silver environmentalists.
Helpful Links:
Important Note and Disclaimer: The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof. The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics. He is not a doctor. Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The author is simply reporting what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage. Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only, and approached with caution. Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments and opinions stated herein. All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional. Readers are solely responsible for their choices. The author and publisher disclaim responsibility or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"In contrast, silver kills microbes in a broad, unspecific fashion -- like tossing a bomb at a bacterium. It hits many essential points such as a bacterium's entire respiratory system. This makes it much more difficult for silver-resistance to develop."

If it does that to a single celled bacterium... what might it do to one of our cells?

And if it bonds to organic material... might it bond to use or stick with us in a negative way?

Steve Barwick said...

Annonymous, you could ask the same question about ANY nutritional supplement, or any drug, for that matter. At some level of intake, they are ALL harmful to cells, tissues, organs, etc. As the old saying goes, "the dose is the poison." A little bit is beneficial, too much can cause problems. Colloidal silver has beeen used by millions of people since the late 1800's, and when used in moderation and with common sense, it has not been known to damage cells, tissues or organs, or cause any health problems whatsoever. When Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. did his groundbreaking research at Syracuse Medical University in the 1970's, he pumped electrically generated silver ions (colloidal silver) directly into the damaged tissues and organs of victims of bone infections, sometimes for days or even weeks on end, and found no discernible harm to the cells, tissues or organs. The only thing he found was that profound healing took place, infections were healed, and bone and tissue re-growth took place at an amazing pace. You might want to read some of the clinical studies on colloidal silver on the "Clinical Studies" page at www.TheSilverEdge.com.