Over the years I’ve
been bombarded with questions about the claims being made against colloidal
silver usage by MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and similar medical-related organizations.
I usually take the
time to answer those questions individually.
But frankly, it’s getting awfully hard to keep up with them since
they’re asked so often. So I’ve written
this rather lengthy article simply to put to rest some of the most egregious of
the online claims against colloidal silver being regurgitated by
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other medical organizations like them.
These are my opinions,
of course. But they’re based on over 20
years worth of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage (I’m
author of the world’s #1 best-selling book on colloidal silver, The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual), as well as by the countless clinical studies on colloidal silver
I’ve read, and the countless testimonials I’ve received from long-time
colloidal silver users (not to mention my own 20-plus years of colloidal silver
usage).
Finally, please
understand, I don’t feel any compunction about putting MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com
and other medical organizations like them under the spotlight, especially
concerning some of the dubious claims they’ve made against colloidal
silver. So if you enjoy seeing the “big
boys” get their rightful comeuppance, then let’s get started, and let the chips
fall where they may…
Hi, Steve Barwick here, for The Silver Edge…
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and a small handful of other
medical-related organizations routinely decry colloidal silver usage as being “unsafe,”
“ineffective,” “unproven,” “potentially dangerous” and more.
Among the specific charges such medical organizations routinely
make are these:
- Colloidal silver is not an essential mineral supplement.
- Colloidal silver has no known function in the body.
- Colloidal silver products that are marketed for medical purposes are now considered “misbranded” under the law.
- Colloidal silver is not considered safe or effective for any of the health claims that manufacturers make.
- No sound scientific studies to evaluate health claims made about colloidal silver have been published in reputable medical journals.
- The Food and Drug Administration has taken action against some manufacturers of colloidal silver products for making unproven health claims.
- Colloidal silver can build up in your body’s tissues over months or years. Most commonly, this results in argyria, a blue-gray discoloration of skin, eyes, internal organs, nails and gums.
- Excessive doses of colloidal silver can cause possibly irreversible serious health problems, including kidney damage and neurological problems such as seizures.
- When taken orally, colloidal silver can wreak havoc on proteins.
- Colloidal silver usage can make other medicines less effective.
- For pregnant women, colloidal silver poses risks to the unborn child, as fetal abnormalities may develop due to its use.
What’s more, those charges have been spread all over the
internet (in articles such as this
one and this
one and this
one), usually by people who are either well-meaning and believe everything
orthodox medicine tells them, or by people who appear to have an underlying
agenda in disparaging colloidal silver and working to scare people away from
trying it.
Finally, it’s important to note that these charges are in
reality just FDA “talking points” on colloidal silver that are being
regurgitated by MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other medical-related sites who
repeat them online, ad nauseum. Some of these claims are even outdated FDA talking points that the FDA
itself no longer uses due to them being thoroughly debunked.
So let’s examine these scary “talking points” one at a time,
and see what we can learn about them.
I’ll tell you in advance what we’ll discover. Almost every one of those “talking points”
are indeed true. But they’re purposely utilized out-of-context, in a deceptive manner
designed specifically to frighten people away from even thinking about
colloidal silver usage. Let me show you
what I mean…
- Claim #1: Colloidal silver is not an essential mineral supplement.
TRUE. Colloidal silver is not an essential mineral supplement, in the same manner as, say,
the mineral calcium, which is essential to the building of strong bones and
teeth, or the mineral sodium, which is needed by the body for proper fluid
balance, nerve transmission and muscle contraction.
But here’s the proper context the purveyors of this
statement always leave out: There are thousands of natural health products ingested
by people every single day that are not “essential” to human biological
function. They’re extremely helpful, but not “essential.”
For example, the mineral lithium
is not an “essential” mineral, either, yet doctors prescribe hundreds of
thousands of doses of it every year for mood stabilization, depression, bipolar
disorder and more. And natural health enthusiasts who suffer from mood problems
also take small amounts of lithium as a mineral supplement, for the same
purposes. Indeed, if you Google “mineral
supplements with lithium” you’ll find 430,000 web pages about it. That’s representative of a lot of lithium mineral supplement usage.
Likewise, the mineral vanadium
is not an “essential” mineral. But it’s
often used by people with diabetes, low blood sugar, high cholesterol, heart
disease, tuberculosis or even water retention.
Indeed, numerous medical studies on vanadium’s effectiveness exist, with
titles like, “The Role Of Vanadium In The Management Of Diabetes.” WebMD even admits that “There is some evidence that vanadium might act like insulin, or help to
increase the effects of insulin.”
Again, vanadium is not considered by medical science to be
an “essential” mineral. The body doesn’t
need it to perform any function. But
that doesn’t stop it from being an astonishingly helpful mineral in terms of improvements to the health and well-being
of those who take it.
The mineral gold is also not an “essential” mineral, yet
it’s been prescribed for decades by doctors for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.
The mineral gold is also used by natural health enthusiasts, in the
colloidal form, for improved immunity, mental focus, mood and memory. It’s also been used by alcoholics to help
mitigate alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
Again, gold is not
in the least bit “essential” to human biological function, but it’s been demonstrated
to be extremely helpful to many
people.
What's more, people routinely ingest medications that are not
“essential," as well. Let’s be
honest here: Is the antibiotic drug
penicillin “essential” to any kind of human biological function whatsoever? Of course not. Yet, as you likely know, the supposed medical
experts at Mayo Clinic and WebMD would not hesitate to prescribe and administer
penicillin (or some other antibiotic drug) to someone who has an infection, in
spite of the fact that it’s not “essential” to the human body.
Likewise, Motrin (i.e., the most popular brand of the pain
reliever ibuprofen) is not
“essential” to human biological function.
But doctors have no problem prescribing it because it works wonders for
stopping pain.
Multitudes of foods we eat are not “essential” either. Fritos certainly aren’t “essential.” Neither are Pop Tarts. Grape juice isn’t “essential” to the function
of the human body, either. Neither is milk.
Neither is toast (though I’d argue that French toast should be essential, especially when
smothered in organic Maple syrup J).
Are you beginning to get an idea of how ridiculous this
charge against colloidal silver usage is?
Don’t you think it’s supremely hypocritical for
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other medical organizations to rail against the
use of colloidal silver, claiming that silver is not an “essential” mineral,
yet they have no problem whatsoever with people taking prescription antibiotic
drugs, or other drugs, none of which are “essential” to human biological
function, either?
So much for this old canard about silver not being an
“essential” mineral.
The claim is nothing more than a clever but thoroughly
hypocritical and disingenuous scare tactic used by MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and
other online organizations like them to make colloidal silver usage appear to be outside the normal purview
of mineral supplementation, when in reality, it’s just another useful mineral
like all of the others.
- Claim #2: Colloidal silver has no known function in the body.
TRUE. But this is just a thinly veiled variation of
the above disingenuous tactic. When
scientists say silver has "no known function" in the body, they mean
it doesn't perform a specific biological function, such as keeping the heart
beating, or helping the liver excrete toxins, or triggering the production of
digestive juices, etc.
But what they fail to point out is that silver is a regular
part of the dietary intake of almost every
human being on planet earth. As
Dartmouth University has pointed out:
"Trace amounts of silver are in the bodies of all humans and animals. We
normally take in between 70 and 88 micrograms of silver a day, half of that
amount from our diet. Humans have evolved with efficient methods of dealing
with that intake, however. Over 99 percent is readily excreted from the
body.
Is
silver harmful to humans? Unlike other metals such as lead and mercury, silver
is not toxic to humans and is not known to cause cancer, reproductive or
neurological damage, or other chronic adverse effects."
-- Dartmouth University Toxic
Metals Research Program
What’s more, silver does
kill pathogens, as hundreds of clinical studies have repeatedly demonstrated
(see here) and as millions
of colloidal silver users who have witnessed their infections disappear after
taking colloidal silver can attest (see hundreds of in-depth colloidal silver
testimonials, here).
Silver has also been empirically and clinically demonstrated to relieve inflammation, reduce pain
and even increase the rate of healing of cuts, burns, bites, various types of
skin outbreaks (including acne, MRSA boils) and much more.
So my answer to the charge by groups like MayoClinic.com,
WebMD.com and others like them who claim that “colloidal silver has no known
function in the body” is this: So what?
Toothpaste has “no known function in the human body,” either. But we use it every day because it helps us
keep our teeth clean. Likewise,
gingerbread has “no known function in the human body,” either. But it’s absolutely delightful and thoroughly
satisfying to eat.
Once again, we see that this common charge against colloidal
silver usage has no legs to stand on – it’s just another hypocritical and
extremely disingenuous scare tactic designed to make colloidal silver usage appear to be dubious, when in reality millions
of people around the world find it astonishingly effective against infections
and other health issues. What’s more, hundreds
of clinical studies have demonstrated colloidal silver to be effective against
a plethora of pathogenic microorganisms, including many of the so-called “super-pathogens”
that have become impervious to modern antibiotic drugs.
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other online organizations
like them appear to be simply banking on the ignorance of their readers as a
means of trying to scare them away from colloidal silver usage. And quite frankly, that disingenuous tactic should
make their readers mad as hornets.
- Claim #3: Colloidal silver products that are marketed for medical purposes are now considered “misbranded” under the law.
TRUE. But that's the FDA's problem. Silver has been in use for medical purposes
for well over two millennia. For
example, Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,”
taught that silver aided skin and tissue repair. Indeed, around 400
B.C. in his treatise “On Ulcers,” he listed silver, in powder form, as a
primary treatment for ulcerations of the skin.
Likewise, Pliny, the
Elder, in his great work, Natural History (78 A.D.), reported in Book II,
Section XXXV, that the “residue of silver... has healing properties as an
ingredient in plasters, being extremely effective in causing wounds to close
up..."
The ancient Chinese
ground up silver, put it into water, and had sick people drink it in order to
cure infections and disease.
Zooming ahead in
history to 1919, we find Alfred Searle stating, in his ground-breaking book
“The Use of Colloids in Health and Disease”:
“Applying colloidal silver
to human subjects has been done in a large number of cases with astonishingly
successful results...it has the advantage of being rapidly fatal to parasites
without toxic action on its host. It is quite stable. It protects rabbits from
ten times the lethal dose of tetanus or diphtheria toxin."
And coming forward in
time to the 1990’s we find Dr. Joseph Weissman, M.D., board certified
immunologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California
Medical School saying:
“Today, many antibiotics are losing the battle with germs.
Fortunately, the best germ killer, which was discovered over 2,000 years ago,
is finally getting the proper attention from medical science - natural silver.
I sincerely recommend that everyone have electrically generated colloidal
silver in their home as an antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal
agent."
But FDA regulations state that any substance not approved by the FDA as a "drug" cannot
be claimed to have even a single
medical or health benefit, or they’re considered to be “misbranded.” Not one health or medical claim can be made
for nutritional supplements. No internal
healing benefits can be mentioned in product advertising. And no topical healing benefits, either. Nothing.
Thus, for example, high-dose vitamin C cannot be claimed in
advertising to help heal colds or flu, even though tens of millions of people
around the world use it for exactly that same purpose, and often to good effect. The fact that the FDA won't allow high-dose vitamin
C to be sold as a cold and flu relieving remedy doesn't make it any less
valuable for the relief of colds and flu.
The FDA is simply saying that since vitamin C is not an approved “drug,”
medical claims for it cannot be made by people selling it.
It’s the same with colloidal silver and thousands upon
thousands of other nutritional supplements.
The FDA won't allow health or medical claims to be made for them, even though that's exactly why people use
them. Although the empirical
evidence shows these supplements aide the body against a plethora of health and
medical issues, if you say so in your advertising for a nutritional supplement
the FDA can shut you down for violating their regulations which are obviously designed to protect drug company profits.
So, once again, we see the same disingenuous tactic being
played out by MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other online organizations like
them. They state a basic truth (i.e., “silver
products that are marketed for medical purposes are now considered ‘misbranded’
under the law”), but then try to twist that truth to sound as if it’s something
that applies uniquely to colloidal silver.
In reality, by FDA regulations, this applies to ALL
nutritional supplements. If you label a
nutritional supplement with a health or medical claim (i.e., “Vitamin C cures
colds”) then your product is considered “misbranded” by the FDA.
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others like them disingenuously
attempt to apply that FDA regulation solely
to colloidal silver, in an attempt to make gullible readers believe silver has
somehow been singled out by the FDA for this special treatment.
Again, this should make readers of those websites mad as
hornets for being so deceptively manipulated by these so-called “trustworthy”
sources of medical information. And it
should certainly call into question the obvious agenda-driven ethics of
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others like them who continually parrot these disingenuous
claims.
- Claim #4: Colloidal silver is not considered safe or effective for any of the health or medical claims that manufacturers make.
TRUE. But again, this is simply another variation
of the same, tired old canards listed above.
It's a game of semantics designed to scare people away from colloidal
silver usage. And it's very insincere, not to mention purposefully
deceitful.
I’ll repeat: By FDA decree,
you can't say any nutritional
supplement on the face of the earth is "safe and effective” for health or
medical claims. It’s just not
allowed. Nutritional supplements – including
colloidal silver -- can only be labeled as GRAS, which stands for “generally
regarded as safe” for ingestion as a
supplement to one’s daily nutritional intake.
But you cannot say a nutritional supplement is “safe and
effective” for medical claims, such
as “vitamin C stops colds and flu” or “colloidal silver stops infections.” Again, this goes for all nutritional supplements, not just colloidal silver. And that’s what makes the claim by
MayoClinical.com, WebMD.com and others like them that “colloidal silver is not
considered safe or effective for any health or medical claims” so
disingenuous. They never point out that
this is true for all
supplements. They attempt to make it
appear that it’s only true for colloidal silver.
Nevertheless, let’s take a brief moment to examine the issue
of colloidal silver safety:
For the last five years in a row, the Annual Report of the
American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System – which
is the largest annual database in the United States covering substances that
have harmed people -- have found ZERO deaths for colloidal silver.
Compare that the 106,000 deaths each and every year in the
U.S. alone attributed to properly prescribed and properly taken prescription
drugs (ref: Dr. Barbara Starfield; Journal
of the American Medical Association; “Is U.S. Health Really the Best in the
World?”), and it really starts putting things into perspective, doesn’t it?
In the same amount of time that there have been ZERO deaths
attributed to colloidal silver (i.e., the past five years), there have been a
whopping 530,000 deaths in the U.S. from properly prescribed and properly used
prescription drugs. And there have been millions more deaths from prescription
drugs, worldwide.
Indeed, prescription drugs are now the third leading cause
of death in men, women and children, behind heart disease and cancer (ref: Dr. Peter Gotzsche, Cochrane Database of
Systematic Reviews, considered to be the world's leading expert on clinical
studies of pharmaceutical drugs). But
you won’t see orthodox medical websites like WebMD.com or MayoClinic.com
admitting this. Instead, they’re too
busy putting up web pages denigrating colloidal silver usage, claiming it to be
“unsafe,” and trying to scare people away from even thinking about trying it.
Here’s my challenge: Go
to MayoClinic.com or WebMD.com, and see how many articles you can find about
prescription drugs. Then check each
article to see if these organizations are honest enough to emphasize that “These
prescription drugs are known to cause over 106,000 deaths of American men,
women and children per year, or one million, sixty thousand deaths every decade,
and are now considered to be the third leading cause of death behind heart
disease and cancer.”
You won’t find any
such notice, of course. That’s because
these two “trusted sources” of medical information (and others like them)
appear to have an underlying agenda,
which is to promote Big Pharma’s prescription drugs while denigrating safe,
natural nutritional supplements like colloidal silver.
Another quick set of factoids regarding colloidal silver’s
safety:
·
Colloidal silver is sold in every health food
store in America. It’s also sold online
by such notable drug store chains as Walmart pharmacies, CVS Pharmacy, and
Walgreen’s, which are three of the four largest drug store chains in the U.S.
·
DrugStore.com also carries colloidal
silver. And of course, Amazon.com, one of the world’s largest
sellers with revenues of $107 billion annually, sells a plethora of different
colloidal silver products in the U.S. and worldwide.
·
What’s more, if you type “colloidal silver for
sale” into a Google search engine, you’ll get well over 3 million web page results.
You have to admit, that’s representative of a lot of colloidal silver sales. Indeed,
it’s been estimated that there are some 10 million active colloidal silver
users throughout North America alone. And of course, the vast majority of
the people using colloidal silver are doing so in order to avoid having to use prescription antibiotic drugs.
But…according to the Annual Report of the American
Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System, in relation
to colloidal silver usage, there were only a meager 18 adverse reactions
reported in 2015 (the 2016 figures won't be available until January 2018) – this,
out of the millions of bottles of
colloidal silver sold in the U.S. every year, and millions more doses made by
people with their own colloidal
silver generators.
To put those 18 paltry adverse reactions into perspective, the
same report tells us there were 34 adverse reactions caused by artists paints…64
adverse reactions caused by ink (from pens)… 31 adverse reactions caused by rubbing
alcohol…263 adverse reactions caused by bleach…41 adverse reactions caused by dishwashing
detergents …269 adverse reactions caused by hair coloring agents…1,951 adverse
reactions caused by pesticides and rodenticides…39 adverse reactions to soil
(yes, as in dirt)...and a whopping
458 adverse reactions caused by caffeine.
So according to the report, dirt is actually twice as dangerous (in terms of adverse reactions)
than colloidal silver. And caffeine is a
whopping 25 times more dangerous than colloidal silver.
If you’d prefer to compare apples to apples (more or less)
from the report, looking at things that people put directly into their mouths, there
were 338 adverse reactions to capsicum peppers (i.e., red peppers)…666 adverse
reactions to “other food products” …69 adverse reactions to food additives…143
adverse reactions caused by dental care products…and 35 adverse reactions
caused by mouthwashes.
So with only a mere 18 adverse reactions to colloidal silver
in the entire year, out of the millions of doses taken, colloidal silver is safer
than all of those products, as well.
Furthermore, there were 2,833 adverse reactions to
anti-depressant drugs…1,031 adverse reactions to antihistamines…1,201 adverse
reactions to decongestants…2,641 adverse reactions to antibiotic drugs…and
1,582 adverse reactions to cardiovascular drugs... 326 adverse reactions to
acetaminophen (i.e., pain-killers like Tylenol)…a combined total of 215 adverse
reactions to aspirin…and 559 adverse reactions to ibuprofen (i.e., pain-killers
like Motrin).
So, based on these figures from the Annual Report of the
American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System, colloidal
silver, with only 18 adverse events reported, is far safer to use than any of those substances, as well.
Finally, in terms of nutritional supplements and related
products, there were 253 adverse reactions to “miscellaneous essential oils”
(making colloidal silver 14 times safer than essential oils). There were also 34
adverse reactions to the amino acid creatine…46 adverse reactions to “other
amino acids”…226 adverse reactions to “single ingredient botanicals” (i.e.,
herbs)…92 adverse reactions to the nutritional supplement melatonin…116 adverse
reactions to magnesium and magnesium salts…96 adverse reactions to zinc and
zinc salts…69 adverse reactions to “other single ingredient dietary supplements”…and
117 adverse reactions to energy drinks.
Finally, there were a whopping 972 adverse reactions to vitamins of all categories combined
(both adult and pediatric vitamins, including individual vitamins and
multi-vitamins in liquid, capsule and pill form).
Wow. This makes taking
vitamins – yes, vitamins -- a
whopping 54 times more dangerous than taking colloidal silver.
(I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out there were ZERO deaths
reported for virtually every category of nutritional supplementation, including
vitamins and including colloidal silver – this, in spite of the fact that literally
billions of doses of these
supplements are taken every single year in the U.S.. So the adverse events data mentioned above is
actually ridiculously low, when taken in context. Again, this makes nutritional supplements, as
a whole, astonishingly safe when compared to the massive 106,000 deaths per year attributed to properly
prescribed and properly used prescription drugs).
Based on these figures, and based on the empirical evidence
of millions upon millions of people worldwide who use colloidal silver, it’s
clear that colloidal silver usage is indeed "safe” and “effective” for a
number of natural health and healing purposes.
But the FDA simply won’t allow manufacturers to say so, which gives
organizations like MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others the right to make
dubious statements like, “Colloidal silver is not considered safe or effective
for any of the health or medical claims that manufacturers make.”
What’s more, the clinical evidence from the early 1900’s to
this very day demonstrates colloidal silver to be both safe and effective, as
well (again, see over 100 clinical studies, here). But legally,
which is to say, under FDA regulations, a colloidal silver manufacturer can't
make such a claim in spite of 100 years worth of empirical and clinical evidence
to the contrary.
I’d have no problem with MayoClinic.com or WebMD.com or
anyone else for that matter making the claim that colloidal silver is not
considered “safe or effective for any of the health or medical claims that
manufacturers make,” if they’d simply put it into proper context by admitting
that this is an FDA regulation, and not
a clinically proven fact. Or, if they’d
admit that tens of millions of people worldwide use colloidal silver for a wide
variety of health issues, without ever experiencing any safety issues. Or even if they’d just admit that each year there
are far fewer adverse reactions to colloidal silver than there are to, say, red
peppers or toothpaste.
But they won’t do admit
those simple truths, because their apparent underlying agenda is to scare
people away from colloidal silver usage.
If they had some kind of legitimate
claim against colloidal silver, such as “one in every five people who use
colloidal silver die after taking it,” or “one in every ten people who use
colloidal silver develop soft bones,” or “one in every 20 people taking
colloidal silver end up getting migraine headaches,” or anything at all, then they’d have reason to warn people away from
it. But they have no such legitimate reasons.
So they use these disingenuous semantic games to carry out their agenda,
banking on their readers to be ignorant.
Shame on them for treating their
readers so shabbily.
- Claim #5: No sound scientific studies to evaluate health claims made about colloidal silver have been published in reputable medical journals.
TRUE. But once again, please notice how utterly
disingenuously that statement is worded.
“No sound scientific studies to
evaluate the health claims made about colloidal silver have been published
in reputable medical journals.”
That’s a very clever way of putting it. After all, if the medical community wanted to do clinical studies evaluating
health claims made about colloidal silver, they most certainly could. But they don’t
want to do such studies. Why? Because if the studies document those claims
to be true – which they undoubtedly would in many cases -- more people will
stop using prescription antibiotic drugs and start using safe, natural (and
relatively less expensive) colloidal silver instead.
But this doesn’t by
any stretch of the imagination mean there have never been any sound scientific
studies on colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver published. In reality, there are tons of them. They just
weren’t conducted on nutritional
supplement claims for colloidal silver.
Instead, they were conducted by bona-fide medical researchers looking
into the possibility of using colloidal
silver as a drug.
In fact, if you don’t believe me, you can view over 100 different
clinical studies on the infection-fighting, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties
of colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver, here. And those 100-plus studies are just the tip of the iceberg of the clinical
studies on colloidal silver that are available online if you care to search for
them.
So you can see, once again, that MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com
and others like them who make the above types of claims are being very
disingenuous with their readers. It’s
all about the semantics.
Yes, it’s true that there have been “no sound scientific
studies to evaluable the health claims
made about colloidal silver” published in reputable medical journals. But
what they fail to tell you is that there have been hundreds of clinical studies conducted on colloidal silver to
evaluate its potential use as a drug
– not just against bacteria, but against viruses, and fungus and inflammation
and even against cancer. And the vast
majority of those hundreds of studies have turned out positive.
Again, you can examine over 100 of these studies, here. And you can read articles about many more
such clinical studies, here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, here, here,
here,
here,
here,
here, here, here, here, here and here.
What’s more, over the past 10 years medical
science has also been studying antimicrobial silver with an eye toward adding silver to their existing prescription
antibiotic drugs. That’s because
their antibiotic drugs have become so ineffective against drug-resistant super-pathogens
they need to find something to add to them to boost their effectiveness. And silver appears to be their top
choice. For example, see these two
articles about two such recent clinical studies:
You can also watch,
right here, a BBC (British Broadcasting Company) interview with a University
researcher and professor who claims that adding silver to existing antibiotic
drugs in order to help boost their effectiveness against drug-resistant super-pathogens
will be a reality within the next five years.
And you might want
to check out what clinical researchers from around the world have been saying
about colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver, in the
eye-opening article Worldwide Praise for Colloidal Silver from
Clinical Researchers.
Why doesn’t
MayoClinic.com or WebMD.com or any of the other colloidal silver naysayers tell
you about any of these fascinating studies and clinical developments regarding
colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver? Well, it wouldn’t fit their anti-colloidal
silver narrative, would it?
One
more important point: In spite of the
claim by naysayers that colloidal silver has never been proven to work in the
human body, it’s important to note that silver is already widely used by
medical science inside the human body,
in medical implants. And it’s used
specifically to stop infections inside
the body. See for example:
So
yes, I love it when people claim colloidal silver has no clinically proven
effectiveness inside the human body, and imply that it’s dangerous to ingest
even in small amounts.
If
that's true, then why do surgeons use silver coatings in their medical implants
such as knee and hip replacements, where it continuously releases silver ions inside the body for decades at a time? Obviously, it's to keep pathogens from
colonizing the implant and causing post-surgical internal infections at the
implant site. Duh.
But
MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other colloidal silver naysayers won’t tell you
this. They either want you to believe
that silver doesn’t work inside the human body at all, or that it only works
when used by medical science and not when used by regular people.
They
also won’t tell you there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the silver
ions released from silver-coated medical implants inside the body and the silver
ions in a bottle of colloidal silver. Silver ions are silver ions. And if they work to kill pathogens inside the human body when they’re being
leached into tissues from silver-coated medical implants, then they work inside the human body when someone drinks
colloidal silver.
Indeed,
clinical studies on silver’s effectiveness against pathogens began in the early
1900's and continue to this very day.
And hundreds more clinical studies demonstrating colloidal silver’s
effectiveness against specific pathogens – such as antibiotic-resistant
superbugs – are published every decade. For
example, see brief excerpts from three new clinical studies proving colloidal
silver to be effective against drug-resistant superbugs, here:
So again, this is another example of semantic word-games
being played by organizations like MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others like
them, with the apparent purpose of scaring people away from even thinking about
trying safe, natural colloidal silver.
In summary, the colloidal silver naysayers continuously claim
there are "no sound scientific studies published in reputable journals to
evaluate health claims made about colloidal silver." But that's only true if you're talking about
the nutritional supplement. If you're talking about attempts by clinical
researchers to use colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver as
a "drug," then there are a plethora of studies (again, see 100 such
studies, here).
- Claim #6: The Food and Drug Administration has taken action against some manufacturers of colloidal silver products for making unproven health claims.
TRUE. But again, that’s just a disingenuous
re-wording of the previous two claims.
The fact that the FDA has seen fit to "take
action" against colloidal silver sellers who violated FDA regulations against
making health claims for their products by discussing the empirical and
clinical evidence for silver's effectiveness against infectious microorganisms,
does not in any way invalidate the evidence.
It just means the FDA is flexing its regulatory muscles and enforcing
its regulatory policies, right or wrong.
- Claim #7: Colloidal silver can build up in your body’s tissues over months or years. Most commonly, this results in argyria, a blue-gray discoloration of skin, eyes, internal organs, nails and gums.
TRUE. However, once again, it’s a very disingenuous
use of the truth. First of all, the term
“most commonly” insinuates that argyric skin-staining is a common-place side effect of colloidal silver usage. But it’s not.
Not even remotely.
Again, there are estimated to be some ten million colloidal silver users in North America alone, and tens
of millions more, worldwide. Yet there
are only one or two people every few years who end up with argyria. Why is that?
It’s because they used colloidal silver abusively and excessively. Argyria does not occur from regular common-sense colloidal silver usage, which
is why tens of millions of people have used it regularly for decades without
any side effects whatsoever.
To take the very tiny handful of examples of argyric
skin-staining caused by abusive and excessive colloidal silver usage (about one
or two cases per year) and try to make that sound as if it’s the norm, when there are in reality tens of
millions of colloidal silver users worldwide who have never experienced a
single negative side effect, is very deceitful.
I’ll repeat once more what Dartmouth University had to say
about human intake of silver in their studies on various minerals and metals,
which were conducted to determine which minerals and metals were harmful and
which weren’t. It’s important to
understand what the Dartmouth University team of researchers found, because
MayoClinic.com and WebMD.com would have you believe the polar opposite:
"Trace amounts of silver are in the bodies of all humans and animals. We
normally take in between 70 and 88 micrograms of silver a day, half of that
amount from our diet. Humans have evolved with efficient methods of dealing
with that intake, however. Over 99 percent is readily excreted from the body. Is
silver harmful to humans? Unlike other metals such as lead and mercury, silver
is not toxic to humans and is not known to cause cancer, reproductive or
neurological damage, or other chronic adverse effects."
-- Dartmouth University Toxic
Metals Research Program
So there you have it.
Under normal circumstances, 99% of silver intake is “readily excreted
from the body.” That’s because the body
has developed a very effective mechanism for utilizing and afterwards excreting
silver. So argyria is very rare, and
only occurs when someone’s colloidal silver usage is egregiously excessive for
long periods of time.
It’s only when abusive
levels of colloidal silver are ingested, regularly, over many months or years
on end, that the body’s mechanism for utilizing and afterwards eliminating
silver can become overwhelmed. And at
that point the body begins to store any excess silver in the tissues and organs. Then, it gradually pushes the excess silver out
to the skin where it can tarnish upon exposure to sunlight, causing the tattoo-like
blue-gray skin-staining known as argyria.
To give you a very specific example, whereas a normal dosage
of 10 ppm strength colloidal silver is considered to be between a teaspoonful
to an ounce a day depending upon one’s body weight, the famous “colloidal
silver blue man,” Paul Karason, admits he was taking up to 20 ounces of highly
concentrated colloidal silver every day for an astonishing ten years before he turned as blue as a smurf.
This is what I mean by disingenuous use of the truth. It’s absolutely true that colloidal silver
intake can cause the blue-gray skin-staining known as argyria. But what MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others
like them always seem to neglect to
mention is that you have to willfully overdose yourself on it, daily, for
months and years on end, before that can happen.
Additionaly, MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others always neglect to inform their readers
that tens of millions of people
around the world take colloidal silver regularly, with no negative effects
whatsoever. They just don’t overdose
themselves on it.
As our mothers always taught us, “Moderation in all
things.” It’s so simple, even a child
can understand it, but apparently not
the brilliant medical minds at MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and other
organizations like them who are so quick to spread these tired old canards
about colloidal silver usage.
- Claim #8: Rarely, excessive doses of colloidal silver can cause possibly irreversible serious health problems, including kidney damage and neurological problems such as seizures.
POSSIBLY TRUE. But be sure to read the clever weasel words
used in that claim, i.e., “rarely,” “excessive doses” and “possibly.” In other words, this claim has virtually nothing to do with normal colloidal
silver usage. And even with “excessive
doses,” it’s only a rare possibility that “kidney damage” and
“neurological problems” can occur.
The short answer to this claim is this: If excessive doses of colloidal silver can
possibly, in rare cases, cause “kidney damage” and “neurological problems such
as seizures,” don’t take excessive doses. Pretty simple, right? Once again, even a child can understand it,
intuitively. But the professional colloidal
silver naysayers continue to use this claim as evidence that colloidal silver
usage is unsafe.
So let’s take a short look at the actual evidence for these
claims:
It’s true that colloidal silver has been blamed in a very
tiny handful of human cases involving kidney damage and neurological
problems. But upon closer examination of
those cases, clinical research experts attest that while silver was blamed,
there was no conclusive evidence for assigning the blame to silver.
According to Dr. Gary Connett, writing in the Journal of the
Royal Society of Medicine in 2007:
"Case reports have described possible nephrotoxicity and neurotoxicity,
but these have not been substantiated by studies in animal models."
(See J R Soc Med 2008: 101: S51–S52. DOI 10.1258/jrsm.2008.s18012.)
In other words, in case reports, doctors have speculated that excessive silver usage
has caused harm to human kidneys and the human nervous system. But that speculation has not been proven to be true when silver is actually tested.
Silver given to animals during medical studies has shown no
significant harm to the kidneys, liver or nervous system of the animals. Even
the EPA admits that relatively high levels of silver given to pregnant rats by
tube feeding (i.e., the silver was fed directly into the pregnant animals
through a tube) resulted in “no systemic toxicity”. As the study authors concluded:
“In a developmental toxicity
study of pregnant rats conducted in 2002 by the National Toxicology Program
(NTP), silver acetate was administered by gavage [tube-feeding – ED]
on days 6-19 of gestation. No developmental effects were reported at doses up
to 100 mg/kg…More importantly, the results from this study did not demonstrate
an increased susceptibility of offspring, nor did it demonstrate systemic
toxicity.”
-- Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register / Vol. 74,
No. 110 / Wednesday, June 10, 2009 / Rules and Regulations
In short, there is no significant clinical evidence that
silver harms the kidneys or the nervous system, or is otherwise toxic to bodily
systems.
What’s more, the claim that colloidal silver can cause “neurological
problems such as seizures” has also been largely debunked (see “Does
Colloidal Silver Cause Seizures?”).
Indeed, according to a study titled "Critical
Observations on the Neurotoxicity of Silver," published in Critical
Review of Toxicology (2007;37:237-50):
"Although silver is
metabolized throughout the soft tissues, available evidence
from experimental animal studies and human clinical reports has failed to
unequivocally establish that it enters tissues of the central nervous system or
is a cause of neurotoxic damage...No evidence is available to demonstrate
the toxic risk of silver to the peripheral nervous system... "
In other words, in animal studies and human clinical
reports, there is no significant body of evidence that silver causes harm to
the human nervous system.
Other well-known medical experts have been honest enough to
point out what’s been known for decades: antimicrobial silver is
generally not known to be toxic, nor harmful to organ function or nervous
system function. For example, according to researchers Drake and
Hazelwood, in the study “Exposure-Related Health Effects of Silver and Silver
Compounds: A Review”:
“Silver in any form is not
thought to be toxic to the immune, cardiovascular, nervous, or reproductive
systems (ATSDR, 1990) and is not considered to be carcinogenic (Furst and Schlauder,
1978).”
The bottom line is that while excessive usage of any substance on the face of the earth
can result in harm, the claim that “excessive doses of colloidal silver can
cause possibly irreversible serious health problems…” is a very disingenuous
tactic designed to scare people away from trying colloidal silver without giving reasonable context or perspective,
i.e., without mentioning that tens of millions of people worldwide use
colloidal silver regularly (in moderation) without experiencing any “irreversible serious health
problems” whatsoever, but instead, only benefits.
- Claim #9: When taken orally, colloidal silver can also wreak havoc on proteins.
NOT DEMONSTRABLY TRUE. "Wreak havoc on proteins?" What exactly does that mean? And where's the documentation for this claim? Naturally, no documentation whatsoever is
given by purveyors of this nonsense.
Silver does indeed
cause cancer cells to be unable to use proteins correctly, thus causing
them to self-destruct in a process called apoptosis. But that's a GOOD thing. And it’s the reason antimicrobial silver
continues to be studied for its proven anti-cancer properties (see here,
here,
here,
here
and here).
What’s more, while silver has repeatedly been shown in
clinical studies to kill cancer cells, it has also been shown in clinical
studies to be protective of normal
human cells (see here
and here).
Silver can also kill germs by binding to and destroying specific
internalized proteins they depend upon to reproduce. But again, that’s a GOOD thing.
So, all I can ask about this claim is “Where’s the
beef?”
- Claim #10: Colloidal silver can make other medicines less effective.
NOT DEMONSTRABLY TRUE. Once again, I must ask, where's the documentation
for this oft-made claim? Years ago, the
FDA made the same claim in one of its online Consumer Alert Bulletins (which is
probably where MayoClinic.com, WebMD.com and others like them originally got
the claim). The FDA even named five or six specific prescription drugs that
colloidal silver supposedly interfered with the absorption of.
So I wrote the FDA and asked for the documentation of their
claims. The FDA responded by telling me
if I wanted to see their documentation, I’d have to file a Freedom of
Information Act request with them. So I did just that. And guess what?
The FDA wrote back admitting that they could find no such
documentation anywhere in their vast files, as you can see for yourself in my
previous article, FDA Admits: No Proof Colloidal
Silver Interferes With Drug Absorption.
After the FDA failed to document their own claims that
colloidal silver can interfere with the absorption of certain drugs, they then removed
their Consumer Alert Bulletin from their website. Of course, online naysayers who rail against
colloidal silver usage continue to promulgate this unproven charge, even though
the FDA no longer does.
- Claim #11: For pregnant women, colloidal silver poses risks to the unborn child, as fetal abnormalities may develop due to its use.
NOT DEMONSTRABLY
TRUE. Once again I must ask, where's
the documentation for this claim? In
reality, I can find only a single
study from the 1970's in which researchers from Massachusetts found a cluster
of children born with fetal abnormalities.
And when they couldn't find a culprit to blame, they examined local
drinking water sources and found extremely low levels of silver in the water.
The researchers then blamed the silver in the local drinking
water, saying "After adjustment for
confounding factors, the results suggested some association between
maternal exposures to 0.001 mglL of silver in the drinking water (1/100 of the
EPA standard) and some increase in fetal developmental anomalies (ear, face,
and neck)."
That's hardly the stuff of a hard-and-fast case against
silver. The results only "suggested
some association" between the silver exposure and the small handful of
birth abnormalities. But it was never
proven. And apparently the problem has
never again resurfaced, in spite of the fact that virtually everyone’s drinking water contains similar
low levels of silver.
Again, as the Dartmouth University Toxic Metals Research
Program concluded after examining silver ingestion in the human body: "Trace amounts of silver are in the bodies
of all humans and animals. We normally take in between 70 and 88 micrograms of
silver a day, half of that amount from our diet. Humans have evolved with
efficient methods of dealing with that intake, however. Over 99 percent is
readily excreted from the body. Is silver harmful to humans? Unlike other
metals such as lead and mercury, silver is not toxic to humans and is not known
to cause cancer, reproductive or neurological damage, or other chronic adverse
effects.”
So I hope you can see why I’m skeptical about the claim that
colloidal silver usage can cause fetal abnormalities in unborn children,
especially when the purveyors of that claim have ZERO clinical evidence that it
even remotely pertains to colloidal silver usage. This doesn’t mean that pregnant women
shouldn’t be very careful about colloidal silver usage, of course, or usage of
any other nutritional supplement for that matter. But it does beg the question of how far
online colloidal silver naysayers are willing to go in order to tarnish the
reputation of colloidal silver with unproven claims.
To Sum Up…
So, I hope I've addressed concerns anyone might have about
the statements being made by online organizations such as MayoClinic.com,
WebMD.com and others like them.
In my humble opinion, their claims are very disingenuous,
and border on being willfully deceitful in some cases. They appear to be purposely designed to take
advantage of people’s naiveté regarding FDA regulations regarding nutritional
supplement claims, and regarding the difference between clinical research into
nutritional supplement claims, and clinical research into drug claims.
What’s more, if you’re at all familiar with the
MayoClinic.com web page on colloidal silver, as well as the WebMD.com web page
on colloidal silver, you’ll know they’ve backed off on some of the most
disingenuous and unproven of the above claims over the past few years.
Of course, the people who have regurgitated those claims all
over the internet – claiming “Mayo Clinic says this…” or “WebMD says that…” haven’t
bothered to remove them, even though some of the claims no longer appear on the
MayoClinic.com website, the WebMD website.
On the Colloidal
Silver Secrets Community on Facebook (which has over 23,000 colloidal
silver users as members), I’m constantly bombarded by new members posting those
claims as “evidence” that colloidal silver is “unsafe” and “unproven.”
Of course, I do my best to educate each individual. And now, with the proper perspective provided
above, you too can see how disingenuous and misleading these long-running (but
generally dubious or disingenuous) claims actually are.
Make Your Own Colloidal Silver for Pennies
Colloidal
silver can be purchased at just about any local health food store, or through a
number of online sources including Amazon.com.
However, it’s quite literally one of the most expensive and
heavily marked-up nutritional supplements in existence.
Health food store owners, for example, often charge as much
as $20-$30 for a tiny four-ounce bottle. Yet the cost to manufacture
four ounces of colloidal silver is about 12 cents. Yes, I said twelve
cents.
Of course, people are willing to pay through the nose for
colloidal silver, since it’s safe and natural, and since empirical evidence and
clinical evidence alike demonstrates that it works so well against germs, mold,
fungus, and even viruses.
But thankfully, there’s no need to pay such exorbitant
prices for colloidal silver, when you can make your own, quickly and easily, in
the comfort and privacy of your own home, for about 36 cents a quart.
Yes, you can make it yourself for its actual cost, and altogether skip the sky-high mark-ups charged by health food stores!
Yes, you can make it yourself for its actual cost, and altogether skip the sky-high mark-ups charged by health food stores!
If you’re interested in learning how to make your own
high-quality colloidal silver at home, for about 36 cents a quart,
here are some additional short articles you might want to take a look at:
Meanwhile, I’ll be back next week with another insightful article on
colloidal silver….
Yours for the safe, sane and responsible
use of colloidal silver,
Steve Barwick, author
The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual
The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual
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 in
journalistic fashion 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 and/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.
Copyright
2017 | Life & Health Research Group, LLC | PO Box 1239 | Peoria AZ
85380-1239 | All rights reserved.
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