Why Does Mainstream Medicine Really Attack Colloidal Silver?

By Tony Isaacs

Prior to the advent of patentable and more profitable antibiotics, medicines containing silver were the most widely prescribed infection fighters by doctors and there were no fewer than 34 different approved prescription and over the counter medications with silver particles.

Now, after improved and nano-technology, and the elimination of most large particle and silver nitrate products, colloidal silver proponents claim that it is safer and more effective than ever.  At the same time, however, it has been the subject of increasing attacks as a scam, quackery and/or dangerous by mainstream medicine and the bloggers and apologists who oppose alternatives to non-approved medicines.

When it is pointed out that colloidal and nano-silver is used by NASA, Potters for Peace, the Hong Kong Subway System, Cure-Aid, and major hospital burn units, the detractors say yes, perhaps it works externally, but when taken internally causes dangerous toxicity due to silver build-up, causes people to turn blue, and, in a familiar refrain, claim that it has no "scientifically" proven benefits.

Yet, the EPA says that 90-95% of ingested silver particles are eliminated from the body within two days and 99% within a week (1), and the bluest of the blue people, "Papa Smurf" Paul Karason (who, like the Montana senator, actually took large quantities of home-made silver made with tap water and contaminated with salt for a prolonged period of many months) was given a clean bill of health at Mount Sinai Hospital. (2)

Insofar as scientific studies, last year it was reported that researchers in Hungary found specific silver receptors on human tissue - an indication that silver plays an important role in human health. (3)  A joint study between the University of Texas and Mexico University published in the Journal of Nanotechnology which showed that silver nano-particles of sizes 1-10nm attached to HIV-1 and prevented the virus from bonding to host cells. (4)

A study conducted by the Department of Microbiology at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, Korea, and published in the prestigious Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, found that nano-silver was comparable in effectiveness to Amphotericin B, one of the most powerful prescription antifungal drugs known to man, which is often used intravenously to cure serious systemic fungal infections, and was found to be superior to the well-known anti-fungal drug fluconazole (popularly known as Diflucan). (5)

Then there is the recently completed study conducted by researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Akron, Ohio, and presented at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society, where researchers infected a group of mice with the bacteria Pseudomona aeroginosa, a common cause of bacterial pneumonia in humans, especially those on ventilators, those with cystic fibrosis or those with compromised immune systems. All the mice then inhaled aerosolized nano-particles once per day. In half of the mice, these particles contained antimicrobial particles known as silver carbene complexes (SCCs).

Mice that inhaled the SCCs had significantly lower concentrations of bacteria in their lungs than mice inhaling placebo nano-particles. Most significantly, none of the mice in the SCC group died, while all the mice in the control group did. (6)

All of which leads to questions, such as: 1) Were all those doctors who prescribed silver products and the scientists who conducted the studies liars, scammers and/or quacks?, and 2) Is mainstream medicine and its advocates and agents attacking colloidal silver because it really does not work and is dangerous, or could it be that they simply attack it and anything else that represents a threat to the hundreds of billions in profits from patented drugs?

Meanwhile millions of people around the world are taking colloidal silver and reporting cures of pneumonia, staph, candida, MRSA, Chrohns, Lyme, influenzas including the H1N1 flu, and much more.

Sources:

1. The Environmental Protection Agency, Integrated Risk Information Program (IRIS), Silver; CASRN 7440-22-4
2. www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,4091,00.html
3. The Crusador - interview with Dr. Eric Rentz, circa June 2008
4. www.physorg.com/news7264.html
5. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18756112
6. www.naturalnews.com/026952_nanoparticles_silver_bacteria.html