Argyria

And Revised Quackwatch page

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And this is why the current laws on "dietary supplements" must be revised.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Once again, details are sparse re the exact steps and ingredients this patient used to produce his CS. Did he use .999 or better fine silver for his electrodes? Was the only other ingredient distilled water? To get 450 ppm (5-30 is 'normal') CS, using low-voltage battery electricity is impossible. Also, the dosage he chose to consume is way over what is recommended for any insult. Additionally, for arthritis, the idea is to get the CS to the affected area as directly as possible. This means a topical, non-oral application; mixing CS with DMSO (which 'pulls' the CS thru the skin) to the affected area. Someone didn't do their homework correctly.Curious lack of references for these 'claims'---not surprising---just another hit piece.

CS is a great antisecptic, but unless you want to be mistaken for a "grey" I really wouldn't advise drinking the stuff.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Sarong, as usual you are parroting the excuses given by the scammers selling this wiorthless crap. It doesn't matter if the silver was .999 assay -- the problem here is silver itself, not some minute contaminant which may be present. Silver, and only silver, causes argryia. Ditto re the water the victim used. There are no known cases of argyria related to water ingestion!

I find it particvularly galling that you ask for references to support the statements on the toxicology/effects of ingested silver. (One is presented, by the way: 1. Hill WR, Pillsbury DM. Argyria, The Pharmacology of Silver. 1st edn. The Williams and Wilkins Co. 1939.). In the many discussions on CS posted on the forum, you have REPEATEDLY been asked to provide any documented research which supports beneficial effects of ingesting CS. Your score so far is ZERO. You have provided links to woo woo and scammer sales sites, but NEVER any valid scvientific research. But it's not your fault -- there isn't any.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Of course not---positive results would threaten Big Pharm's profits. Explain VIOXX.

This is subterfuge. You are inventing a conspiracy to explain why there are no studies showing that CS is beneficial.

Even if you are right (and you've provided no evidence for any type of grand conspiracy), that doesn't change the central point: That there are no documented research which supports beneficial effects of ingesting CS. Therefore it is unethical to promote ingestion of CS as being beneficial.

you've also never acknowledged that pharmaceutical companies are perfectly capable of producing "silver supplements," were such a thing needed, and profiting thereby.

look, I work for a jeweler on the Ren Faire circuit. due to his exposure to, among other things, silver, he's got to get tested for his heavy metal levels on a fairly regular basis to prevent all kinds of happy side effects. I talked to him about you, and he's alarmed that anyone would voluntarily ingest the stuff. (sure, it's anecdotal, but it's no better or worse than the information you've thus far provided.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

No, what is unethical are the repeated "Aha's!" by those pointing to patients who ingest improperly made CS, resulting in argyria. Not one report of these I have read describes just exactly what these patients ingested, other than Stan Jones, who, by his own admission, used tap water instead of distilled to make his, and Rosemary Jones, who was given 'silver protein' nose-drops. Also, I have yet to find any deaths associated with silver ingestion of any kind, anywhere. In asking why there are no reputable, double-blind, peer-reviewed, Sammy-acceptable studies of in vivo use of CS, consider the cost of same and the fact that it can easily made with three little 9-volt batteries, a couple of commemmorative (.999 fine silver---or the Canadian Maple Leaf Silver Dollar at .9999) coins, and distilled water. Not much profit here for any Big Pharm-sponsored studies, while universities, so far, seem to have limited themselves to in vitro tests only.
Sterling (jewelry) silver has 7-8% alloy (usually copper), and is therefore unsuited to make proper CS.

what on Earth is silver protein?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

SS, saying "I'm not unethical, you are" is not a terribly compelling argument.

Besides, while I agree that the repeated "Aha's" are based on anecdotes, and are therefore not proof of the danger of ingesting CS as you make it, I don't see how it is unethical. By doing so, Sammy and others are merely warning people that something might be dangerous. You, on the other hand, are espousing CS without any documented research to show that it is beneficial
You are repeating yourself, and have not answered either my point or Gillianren's. I suggest you do so.

Sarognsong, it's TOTALLY irrelevant HOW it's made, as has been pointed out to you numerous times.

NOTHING but silver causes argyria. No matter what the production process is, when you ingest the silver, it combines with the numerous compounds in your stomach to produce silver salts. That means silver chloride (AgCl) for sure, since hydrochloric acid (HCl) is always present; you probably also have nitrates in your stomach, so you get silver nitrate (AgNO3).

As for research, why haven't any of your scammer CS sellers done any research? Their profit margin has got to be as good or better than big pharma. Cheap feedstock, no costs for R&D, QA, or insurance.

As for Vioxx, what does that have to do with any of this discussion? Vioxx turned out to have risks associated with it's ingestion. But it at least had proven benefits as well, and it's maker will end up paying significant damages to those harmed by it. Who will reimburse you when you turn grey, or worse, show the other DOCUMENTED effects of silver poisoning? BTW, the article cited in the original post did not formally (and properly) reference the background for it's comments on silver toxicity, but they are so well known and demonstrated that they obviously did nto feel it necessary. I doubt that a scientist writing an article on falling bodies would bother to provide references to Newton when refering to gravity........

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

A simple question about colloidal silver. With all these arguments going back and forth over whether it's good or whether it's dangerous, couldn't somebody fund a good clinical study? The only published references seem to be from like 1939. Couldn't someone design a good study, double-blind, placebo controlled, and just do it? It would make things so much easier, and wouldn't really cost all that much. Until that's done, it seems fairly useless to spend too much time thinking about it one way or the other.

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As above, so below

Lets do the same for Arsenic as well.
Would you be willing to dose yourself with a toxic chemical to see how much you need to turn grey?

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There's a big difference between arsenic and colloidal silver. It's well known that arsenic is toxic, so nobody would be willing to be a participant. However, the fact that people pay money for colloidal silver shows that it's not universally recognized as dangerous. In fact, from what I understand, argyria, though certainly not pleasant, is not a health-threatening problem. It's standard practice to put drugs through phase 1 trials, which are essentially designed to gauge toxicity. But the point is, if people are taking it anyway, then why not let them take it as part of a monitored trial.

Also, I don't know. Is there some claimed therapeutic benefit of arsenic?

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As above, so below

I wish you folks would stop putting down colloidal silver. You're giving sarongsong the blues.

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Yes, one's a bit more useless and dangerous than the other.

Only if there is evidence that there is some benefit from taking such drugs, for which in the case of silver there is none.

Ditto re arsenic. That might cause a flood of entries at the Darwin Awards though.

Arsenic was a popular drug in the 1700s-1900s, and was supposedly a cure for syphilis and psoriasis, for which it was used into the 1940s.

There's no therapeutic benefit re silver either, but at least so far it appears to be somewhat benign (other than for the pocketbooks of those who throw their money away on such scams).


[edit/removed inapplicable content]

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Wasn't mercury another one of those popular cures?

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

That's correct.

There are many historical documents on the application of this "drug". Here's an example.

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Apparently, the Australian Government has been subverted by Big Pharma also:

"In 1998, the Complementary Medicines Evaluation Committee (CMEC) was requested to provide advice to the National Drug and Poisons Scheduling Committee (NDPSC) on the efficacy of colloidal silver as a complementary medicine, to assist them in considering the use of the Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons (SUSDP) in providing safeguards in the use of this substance.

Following an investigation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the CMEC recommended that the NDPSC be advised that there are no current legitimate uses of colloidal silver and that the Surveillance Section of the TGA be requested to investigate the illegal availability of colloidal silver products because of concerns about their significant toxicity. The reasons for the recommendation were that:

there is little evidence to support therapeutic claims made for colloidal silver products;

the risk to consumers of silver toxicity outweighs the value of trying an unsubstantiated treatment, and bacterial resistance to silver can occur;

and efforts should be made to curb the illegal availability of colloidal silver products, which is a significant public health issue."

http://www.tga.gov.au/docs/html/csilver.htm

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

yeah, stupid ol' Australian government, trying to keep people from ingesting worthless, potentially dangerous, not-required-by-your-body substances.

look, it's your body, so I can't tell you what to do or what not to do. however, I wish I could find the person who convinced you that it was good for you, so I could get someone to institute fraud proceedings.

do you think we're all subjugated by "big pharma," whatever that is? do you not realize that "dietary supplements" are just as big a business? sure, you make your own "colloidal silver" at home. fine. but there are still companies that make millions selling that sort of thing, under absolutely no regulation to make sure that what they're selling isn't dangerous.

we talked about how they can't use the word "cure," and you said that it was, as I recall, that wretched FDA busting their groove, or whatever variation you used. but don't you see that if they could prove that it would cure malaria, it would get the FDA, and all of us as well, off their backs?

it's not funny to me anymore. it was, at first, in the knowledge that there was someone that willing to ignore all basic health considerations because of what "They" weren't telling us. but what you are doing is dangerous. silver's just the latest in a long line of dangerous metals used as "medicine," and while it's not as dangerous as arsenic or mercury, it's still not good for you. as a topical lotion, it's fine. as a water filtration product, apparently, it's fine. but you are taking a dangerous substance into your body, and it's not doing you any good. I'm wondering how many other people are being deluded by a belief that the pharmaceutical companies don't want to have yet another drug to sell you that would actually do some good.

okay, sure, there've been some drugs passed by the FDA that shouldn't have been, and the fact is, had I had health insurance, I might've been on VIOXX. but here's what you have to remember--there was regulation, so when it was found that it was dangerous, it was pulled off the market. who's doing that with unregulated dietary supplements? if you had your way, no one.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I wasn't making any statement about the benefits or lack thereof, so I can't see how I could have made a logical fallacy.

All I'm saying is, people are taking colloidal silver now, fact. And there's no evidence that it has any benefit. But if we did a well designed trial, and it showed that there was no benefit, and in addition showed that there was an unpleasant side effect, then when somebody came to talk to me about the benefits of it, I could show them the study.

This might be seen as unethical. And so what I meant is that since people are taking it anyway, why would it be unethical to put them into a clinical trial, give half CS and half a placebo, and see what happens? Is this what you meant by the fallacy, "people are taking it anyways, so what's wrong with putting them into a trial"?

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As above, so below

Thanks for the clarification. I agree with the proposed test, although the "users" might not.

Somehow I got the impression that you were pro-colloidal silver. Perhaps the polarity of the posts on this topic caused me to interpret your basically neutral one as leaning toward colloidal silver being a legitimate dietary supplement.

My mistake. My apologies.

Inapplicable content of earlier post deleted.

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Sarongsong: Is this why you started taking another toxic metal (selenium) as a "dietary supplement:


"Hepatic necrosis and ultrastructural changes of the liver have been induced by silver administration to vitamin E and/or selenium deficient rats (Wagner et al., 1975; Diplock et al., 1967; Bunyan et al., 1968). Investigators have hypothesized that this toxicity is related to a silver-induced selenium deficiency that inhibits the synthesis of the seleno-enzyme glutathione peroxidase. In animals supplemented with selenium and/or vitamin E, exposures of silver as high as 140 mg/kg/day (100 mg Ag/L drinking water) were well-tolerated (Bunyan et al., 1968)."

From the EPA IRIS document on silver http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0099.htm

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Hee-hee, no, it was to encourage robust cell development. Good article, tho, in describing silver's long link with medicine, even pointing out intravenous use, as did this thread's opening article, Systemic argyria associated with ingestion of colloidal silver, that could have been more accurately entitled "Systemic argyria associated with ingestion of granular silver":Minimal particle size, measured in nanometers, is the grail of CS 'followers', along with silver ions (the radius of a silver atom being 0.144 nm). What I use is 90% ionic, and the attendant 10% particles are in the 10-15 nm range. No worries here about 1 mm sized 'boulders' clogging up the system!

The good news is that it doesn't kill you. If you want to turn yourself into a permanent blueberry, then have at it!

Even better news is what it does kill.

Even better news is that we can continually maintain this thread!

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taurus26

Dedicated to Graham Kennedy.

You still don't get it, Buddy/Buddette. Did you cut all the classes in hi school chemistry? Those granules are silve which the body concentrates and deposits. The size and nature of the ingested silver is IRRELEVANT. The silver, whatever the size/form, reacts CHEMICALLY with substances in your stomach and bloodstream. The size of the silver atoms/ions/particles DOES NOT CHANGE THE CHEMICAL REACTION (other than perhaps the rate of the recation).

The scammers try to make this false difference to reassure the victims, but it just ain't so. If any biochemist/physiology types on the Board think differently, I'd love to hear it.

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Standing on the shoulders of giants...

My reading of the article clearly states these individual granules are 1 mm in size; in keeping with the claimed 450 ppm CS, the particles must necessarily be unusually large thru agglomeration by running the electrical process far longer than recommended. It would have been helpful for the authors to have included the instructions the patient followed, as some early recipes called for the addition of salt to 'speed-up' the production process. I don't think silver builds up in the body to the extent you assume: