It’s sad when people you can normally
rely on for accurate information on healthy natural living fall for the
propaganda against antimicrobial silver being dished out by the radical,
anti-silver environmentalists.
But it’s happened more times in the
past than I care to remember. And I
believe that’s largely because we all want to be environmentally
conscientious. But when the
environmentalists are flat-out lying about a subject like antimicrobial silver,
you have to set aside personal loyalties to cherished concepts, and look
instead at the raw facts.
And hopefully, if you set the facts
out nice and straight, so people can see them, then the people being taken in
by the rank sensationalism against antimicrobial silver will see the error of
their ways and turn a new page. Here’s
one such case I’m hoping the best for…
Hi, Steve
Barwick here, for The Silver Edge…
I’ve had a
number of readers ask me what I thought of an article titled “Invisible Toxins in Food Can
Damage Your Health,” written by a gentleman named Jonathan Landsman, which was
published on the usually reliable NaturalHealth365.com website.
Mr. Landsman,
blamed “silver nanoparticles” for just about all of the world’s ills. So I think most readers who have been with me
for any length of time already know how I feel about that topic.
Nevertheless,
I’ve read Mr. Landsman’s article, and for the sake of those who might be new to
the “silver wars,” I’m happy to dissect it for you here, at least in part, if
you’re interested in hearing my viewpoint on the matter.
If the Foundation is Shaky…
The very
first thing we see in Mr. Landsman’s article is this scary statement:
“You can’t see, smell or taste them –
but over the last few years silver nanoparticles have been added to our food
supply (and medications) at an alarming rate.
Like me, I’m sure you’re wondering why
would food producers – and the pharmaceutical industry – place silver in their
products?”
So what’s the
problem with this statement? There’s not
a word of truth in it. That’s what. Nobody’s putting silver in the food
supply. And nobody’s putting silver in your
pharmaceutical medication.
Now, to be
fair to Mr. Landsman, a small handful of researchers have indeed done clinical
research on adding silver nanoparticles to prescription antibiotic drugs.
And to answer
Mr. Landsman’s second question above, the reason why these researchers would even
consider doing such a thing is that the preliminary results have clearly demonstrated
that adding silver to the antibiotics
increased their effectiveness against pathogenic microorganisms by as much as
1,000x.
In other
words, adding silver to prescription antibiotic drugs just might help solve the
growing crisis of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. That’s because silver kills microbes in such
a manner that very few of them can become resistant to it.
Here’s how it
works:
Whereas
prescription antibiotic drugs merely poison the microbes (which they can mutate
to avoid), silver actually bursts the microbes outer membrane, destroys its
ability to create energy (in essence, shutting down its metabolism) and then
finally attaches to its DNA which prevents it from replicating.
But this relatively
new research is only in the preliminary stage, and adding silver to
prescription medications has, to my knowledge, never been approved by the Food & Drug Administration. So the pharmaceutical industry is not piling
silver into our medications as Mr. Landsman so strongly insists.
Finally (and
I’m still only talking about Mr. Landsman’s very first paragraph, here), his
shrill claim that nanosilver is being “added to our food supply” is equally
erroneous.
I’ve already
destroyed the idea that food producers are adding silver to foods, in my
previous article “Evil Silver Nanoparticles Invading Your
Fruits and Veggies?”
Once again,
it’s true that some researchers have done preliminary
research into the use of nanosilver on food crops as a means of eradicating
pathogens that cause billions of dollars worth of crop loss every year, and
cause tens of thousands of cases of food poisoning as well.
Researchers
also want to know whether or not silver can be used as a safe, non-toxic
natural substitute for the toxic
synthetic chemicals used by farmers today to eradicate pathogens before they
can destroy crop growth.
But just as
adding silver to prescription antibiotic medications is only in the preliminary
research stage and has never been approved, so the use of nanosilver on food
crops is only in the preliminary research stage as well. And it, too, has never been approved by the regulatory authorities. There’s still a lot more research to do.
Interestingly,
this preliminary research into using nanosilver on food crops to help stop
pathogen growth has shown some very promising results, including reduced fungal
loads on crop plants, and larger, healthier crops.
You can read
more about this research in my previous article, “Gardeners: Colloidal Silver Kills Plant Fungus, Produces
Larger and Healthier Crops.”
So there’s no nanosilver whatsoever being “added to
our food supply (and medications) at an alarming rate” as Mr. Landsman asserts.
Indeed, the only thing “alarming” about
this topic is Mr. Landsman’s sensationalistic rhetoric.
Listen: Whenever the foundation is shaky, you have to
suspect the rest of the house will be shaky too. Mr. Landsman’s house of erroneous information
on nanosilver is extremely shaky, indeed.
Lions, and Tigers
and Bears (Oh, My!)…
Landsman goes
on to say “Consuming silver nanoparticles
is a bad idea…scientific research warns us that uptake of these tiny particles
can cause cellular damage, kidney disorders, stomach upset, headaches, fatigue
and skin irritation.”
The
interesting thing, so far, is that not a single one of Mr. Landsman’s claims
are backed up with even a smidgeon of reliable clinical documentation.
Instead of
producing clinical research to back up his claims, Landsman instead provides
links to equally sensationalist articles spouting equally spurious “facts”
about nanosilver.
So what do
the real experts say about silver
intake?
As stated in
a position paper on silver by the Dartmouth University Toxic Metals Research
Program:
"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."
And as Britain's
foremost expert on silver, researcher Alan Lansdown (not to be confused with our
intrepid Mr. Landsman), has pointed out on many occasions, the idea
that silver intake results in cumulative toxicity in the human body, or any
form of harm to cells or tissues, is simply and decidedly untrue. He states:
“…silver
is actively metabolized in the human body and a large part eliminated
eventually via the liver, urine and hair...
…there
is very little substantive evidence that silver acts either as a cumulative
poison in the human body like lead and mercury, or that it reaches toxic levels
in any tissue...”
--
“Silver in Healthcare: Its Antimicrobial Efficacy and Safety in
Use,” by Alan B. G. Lansdown, pg. 45, 59, 60
Truly, Mr. Landsman’s
claims are little more than rank sensationalism, mostly copied from the
websites of anti-silver environmentalists who still to this day claim
that nanosilver is causing global warming and “killing the planet.”
Problem is,
nanosilver has been on this planet a whole lot longer than the human race. And humans are mere pikers when it comes to
producing nanosilver.
The seas, for
example, naturally contain tons upon tons upon tons of trace silver (and these same seas thrive with every form of
life you can imagine in spite of all of that “evil” silver). And the earth’s surface naturally contains
tons more trace silver.
Indeed, the
stuff is absolutely ubiquitous throughout the earth. That’s because, as research scientists have
recently discovered, “Mother Earth” makes her own nanosilver, without any help at all from we mere
humans.
Where Does He Get His Facts?
So where does
Mr. Landsman get all of his “facts”?
It appears to
me that 99% of Landsman’s material on nanosilver is taken right out of the
playbook of extremist, neo-Luddite anti-silver environmentalists who have been
shrieking for years now that silver is “destroying the environment” in spite of
the fact that silver comes from the
environment in the first place, and pervades the environment naturally.
I’ve written
many times in the past about the deceitful and sensationalistic ways the
anti-silver environmentalists try to trash all forms of antimicrobial silver
(while taking millions of dollars per year in
donations from charitable foundations set up by Big Pharma).
The
environmentalists claim, for example, that there are studies demonstrating that
silver harms animals. And Landsman parrots that claim in his article,
saying “Animals treated with silver
nanoparticles exhibited reduced cognitive/motor functions and altered cellular
structures in the brain.”
But where’s
the clinical documentation for this very serious charge?
Once again,
the only documentation provided are
links to other sensationalistic articles written by silver-bashing environmentalists. Clinical studies are not provided, because if
they were, we’d be able to read them and see the glaring faults contained in
them.
You see, there
simply isn’t any credible clinical documentation for these claims.
On the contrary, every decent animal study I’ve ever seen on nanosilver has
demonstrated no harm whatsoever to the animals even at extremely large dosages.
For example,
here’s an article about a 2012 clinical study which
showed no harm whatsoever to animals, even when they were exposed to well
above-moderate doses of nanosilver.
And here’s another article on a recent study on silver nanoparticles, showing that when the silver was administered to animals even at an astonishingly high 5,000 ppm there was still no harm to the animals.
And here’s another article on a recent study on silver nanoparticles, showing that when the silver was administered to animals even at an astonishingly high 5,000 ppm there was still no harm to the animals.
Even when the
Environmental Protection Agency studied silver’s effects on pregnant rats that
were being tube-fed a caustic form of silver known as silver acetate, they
couldn’t find any lasting harm to the animals.
“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
So, silver didn’t appear to harm the development
of baby rats, even though it was being tube-fed directly into the mother rats for
13 days during gestation.
A Little Bit Fruity?
Landsman also parrots additional false information from the so-called “silver nanoparticle fruit study,” which, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve already written extensively about at this link.
Landsman also parrots additional false information from the so-called “silver nanoparticle fruit study,” which, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve already written extensively about at this link.
As you’ll see
when you read my article at the above link, the entire “study” on alleged
nanosilver in fruit was a red herring. No
nanosilver was ever found in
commercially sold fruit.
Instead, the
researchers purchased some fruit and then soaked
it in nanosilver themselves. Afterwards,
they used a new technique to detect the presence of the silver in the fruit.
The radical,
anti-silver environmentalists then seized upon this study and wrote numerous
articles about it, claiming the study showed that our fruits and veggies are
teaming with nanosilver that’s being added by farmers. But the study showed no such thing.
The way the
study was interpreted and touted by dozens of environmentalist writers was a sensationalistic
“sky-is-falling” fabrication from start to finish, designed by said environmentalists
to smear nanosilver as a “toxin” that’s “invading our fruits and vegetables,”
when there’s absolutely no evidence of any such thing, anywhere.
Indeed, the
entire “nanosilver in your fruits and veggies” story was, in my opinion, knowingly concocted and spread by
anti-silver environmentalists who knew in advance that not a word they were
saying was true.
Landsman goes
on to claim that “Many food packing
materials incorporate silver nanoparticles to prolong the shelf life of
packaged foods. The nano material has
been known to transfer to the food – inside the package.”
Please name
even one of these “food packing
materials” that incorporates silver nanoparticles into its makeup. I’d be particularly interested to know of any
that are in use commercially, right now, and that the average person would come
into contact with through food purchased through a normal retail food outlet.
Can’t name
any? Neither can I. That’s because, under pressure from the
radical anti-silver environmental groups who repeatedly sue the EPA every time they try to
approve a consumer product containing antimicrobial nanosilver, the vast majority of these products
have long ago been pulled from the market.
So this ominous “threat” is virtually non-existent.
But I’ll tell
you something: If I could actually find any of these “food packaging
materials” that supposedly have nanosilver incorporated into their makeup, I’d
buy them and use them.
Why? Because food poisoning – which sickens 48
million people per year in the U.S., and kills thousands of them – is a far
more insidious threat to human health than nanosilver could ever be.
Worse yet,
recent studies have demonstrated that over 50% of all store-bought meats are now contaminated with potentially
deadly MRSA bacteria. While MRSA does not cause food poisoning, it
does infect some 39,000 people in the U.S. every year, and has a death rate
higher than AIDS.
Thankfully, silver
is extremely effective against MRSA.
Indeed, as
I’ve discussed repeatedly in the past (see “In Defense of Colloidal Silver Nanoparticles: It’s Time to Kick Some Environmentalist Butt”) nanosilver is the answer to the threat of bacterially
contaminated meats. Not the problem.
Do Silver Nanoparticles Harm Cells?
As I’ve
noted, very few of Landsman’s claims, such as the claim that silver
nanoparticles “have devastating effects on cell survival” have any
documentation whatsoever.
In reality,
study after study demonstrates that silver protects human cells.
For example,
see my previous article, “NanoSilver
Prevents Blood Clots; Doesn't Harm Cells,” about a recent study
demonstrating that nanosilver not only prevents blood clots, but causes no harm
to human cells whatsoever.
And see “Another New Study Demonstrates the Protective Effects of
Silver on Human Cells,”
in which researchers document the rather astonishing cell-protective effects of
silver against alcohol poisoning.
Also, see
this older clinical study, “Effects of Electrically Generated
Silver Ions on Human Cells and Wound Healing,” in which the researchers demonstrate how tiny,
electrically generated silver particles stimulate cells to begin the healing
process in serious wounds and open infections.
And finally,
see this clinical study, “Topical
Delivery of Silver Nanoparticles Promotes Wound Healing,” in which
researchers document how silver nanoparticles promote wound healing on the
cellular level and protect cells from the damage that would normally be caused
by excessive cytokine expression in wounds.
So where do
the environmentalists get this crap when they claim silver harms cells?
They get it
from studies conducted by other radical,
anti-silver environmentalists who take lab-grown human cells and put them
in a test tube, and then soak them in such high concentrations of nanosilver as
to guarantee negative results.
For an example
of how blatantly this is done, see the very misleading study I dissect in my previous
article, “Flawed Study Says Colloidal Silver
Toxic to Human Cells.”
Naturally,
the study authors could have taken the same human cells and soaked them in high
concentrations of orange juice, or coffee, or vinegar, or even distilled water
and gotten the same exact negative results.
That’s because
any time you take human cells out of their biological environment, put them in
a test tube and soak them in overly-high concentrations of a substance for
dozens of hours, you’re going to be able to document harm to those
cells. It’s inevitable.
But that’s
the kind of trickery and chicanery the anti-silver environmentalists resort
to. They can’t demonstrate that commercial products containing silver have
ever harmed anyone’s cells, in the
past 120 years since nanosilver was first produced by humans. So
they engineer a study and rig it to demonstrate harm.
If you read
the above-linked article, you’ll be shocked to see what lengths these guys go
to in order to smear antimicrobial silver.
One More Myth Bites the Dust
Finally, Mr.
Landsman states that “Observations, in
laboratory animals, have shown that the uptake of these particles – in the
digestive tract – can change the terrain. The digestive tract harbors
beneficial bacteria along with pathogenic bacteria. Silver nanoparticles can
wipe out the ‘good bacteria’ along with toxic ones.”
Yes, it’s
true. Silver is indeed unable to
distinguish between good digestive bacteria and pathogenic bacteria. As I’ve pointed out here
and here, silver is an equal opportunity antimicrobial substance. And therefore excessive use of silver should be eschewed, if you want to protect
your body’s beneficial digestive micro-flora.
However, as I
pointed out last week in my article “Debunking ‘Why I Never Consume
Colloidal Silver’,”
the exact same thing can be said about virtually all natural antimicrobial substances – including many that have
been recommended repeatedly on Mike Adam’s NaturalNews.com (one of my favorite
websites), which Mr. Landsman apparently works with.
In other
words, natural antimicrobials like garlic, grapefruit seed extract, oregano
oil, cayenne pepper and many others ALL have one thing in common: like colloidal silver, they too cannot distinguish
between our body’s beneficial digestive bacteria and infection-causing
pathogens.
Yet these
natural substances are all highly touted by natural health gurus like Mr.
Landsman. And one of the reasons they’re
so highly touted is because they pose far
less risk to the body’s beneficial microbes than prescription antibiotic drugs.
So the same
is just as true for silver as it is for garlic, oregano oil, or any other
natural antimicrobial. As I point out in
the article at the above link, very little ingested silver ever makes it into
the large and small intestines where the vast majority of one’s three and a
half to seven pounds worth of
beneficial microflora reside.
That’s
because mineral silver – just like garlic, grapefruit seed extract, oregano
oil, cayenne pepper and other natural antimicrobial substances – is treated by
the body as nutrition, whereas
antibiotic drugs are not.
And even when
some mineral silver does make it into
the intestinal tract, of which the average human adult has some 28 feet worth
with virtually every square centimeter absolutely teaming with billions of
beneficial digestive microbes, there’s very little chance of it harming enough
of the good bacteria to put a significant dent in the population, unless
ungodly, egregiously high levels of silver have been consumed.
The human
digestive tract actually contains more
microbes than the human body has cells.
Think about that for a moment. Yes,
in terms of individual microbes, versus individual cells, we’re actually more
microbe than “human” in makeup.
So while
overuse of prescription antibiotic drugs – which acts as a whole-body “poison”
to microbes, good and bad alike -- may well be able to wipe out large portions
of our body’s beneficial micro-flora, natural
mineral antimicrobial substances like silver and natural plant-based
antimicrobial substances like garlic, oregano oil, etc., have never been
known to do so when used within normal bounds.
Again, this goes
for all natural antimicrobial
substances. They all have the potential
to kill some of our body’s beneficial
microbes when used. But they’re all far
safer to use than prescription antibiotic drugs, in that regard, as long as
they’re used within common-sense boundaries.
You have to
balance the risks versus the rewards.
And with natural antimicrobials – including mineral silver – the risks
are relatively low and the rewards relatively high, compared to the toxic
effects of prescription antibiotic drugs.
So to single
out silver as some kind of dire threat to our body’s populations of beneficial
digestive microbes is at best, deceptive, and at the very least disingenuous,
in my view.
No Big Surprise
None of the
tirades against silver which you’ve seen over the past few years should surprise
you. Silver has long been in the cross
hairs of Big Pharma. They’ve long wanted
to patent it, and monopolize its use for themselves, while restricting the
public’s access to its antimicrobial properties.
So they use
their minions in the environmentalist movement (who
take millions of dollars in contributions from Big Pharma charitable
foundations) to ruthlessly
propagandize against silver, so the average Joe won’t have access to it in the
form of antimicrobial consumer products.
In
conclusion, it’s very sad to see that Mr. Landsman has fallen for this
environmentalist clap-trap, when it’s so easily debunked.
Since he’s an
ardent proponent of natural healthy living, and since he appears to be
associated with one of my heroes, Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com, I hope he’ll
do some additional research (some of the links in this article would be good places
to start) and eventually see the light.
I’d like to
point out that I do agree – wholeheartedly, in fact – with Mr. Landsman’s
advice that where food is involved, we should all buy locally grown foods
whenever possible, and that organic meats and produce are best, because they’re
least likely to be treated with toxins, drugs, and other undesirable
chemicals. On that topic, Mr. Landsman
and myself are of the same heart and mind.
If you’re
interested in learning more about how the radical anti-silver environmentalists
are destroying the market for antimicrobial silver in this country, and putting
millions of people at risk for disease and infection as a result, see my article
on that topic at this link.
And if you’d
like to learn more about how the radical anti-silver environmentalists are
running a global propaganda campaign to smear silver as an “environmental
toxin” and have antimicrobial silver banned from all consumer usage, see my
article “The Global Environmental Campaign to
Ban Antimicrobial Silver.”
Meanwhile,
I’ll be back next week with another great article on the astonishing,
infection-fighting qualities of 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
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2014 | Life & Health Research Group, LLC | PO Box 1239 | Peoria AZ
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