06/05/2016
this is an extraction from a fellow colloidal silver manufacturer.
sorry that it is very long, yet it is an important validation.
What the experts say about colloidal silver and other silver-based antimicrobials...
[While the FDA uses their legal prerogative to assert that colloidal silver has not been found safe or effective for use as a natural infection-fighting agent, it has indeed nevertheless widely been used as such since the early 1900's.
Here is a cross-section of quotations from a variety of sources regarding the use of colloidal silver in health and medicine. Some of these sources are of recent date, and others date all of the way back to the 1800's when the use of colloidal silver in health and medicine first began in earnest.
Please note that in no way, shape or form should these quotations be construed to be an endorsement of the use of colloidal silver for purposes not approved by the FDA. Nor should they be construed as "prescriptive" in nature. They are for informational and research purposes only.
In some cases, the uses of colloidal silver described in these quotations, or the methods of use described, could be harmful rather than helpful. Never self-treat. Always use colloidal silver under the supervision of a knowledgeable health care practitioner.]
"Silver, in the form of a metal or as dissolved ions, fights microorganisms by interfering with processes such as how they breathe and reproduce. Tests show that silver ions kill microorganisms ranging from harmful strains of e. coli that cause food-borne diseases to the staphylococcus bacteria responsible for serious infections.
The metal becomes more active against microbes when it's made into small particles because they can cover more surface area when they come into direct contact with bacteria, says Andrew Maynard, a physicist and chief scientific adviser to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington."
-- Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2006, The War Against Germs Has a Silver Lining
"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."
-- The Use of Colloids in Health and Disease (1919), by Alfred Searle
"Colloidal silver is an inexpensive healing agent and disinfectant that has a myriad of applications. It is a clear golden liquid composed of 99.9-percent pure silver particles approximately 0.001 to 0.01 microns in diameter that are suspended in pure water. Colloidal silver can be mixed with either tap or distilled water and applied topically, taken by mouth, or administered intravenously."
-- Prescription For Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A Balch CNC and James F Balch MD, pg 66
"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
"Scientists have discovered that the body's most important fluids are colloidal in nature: suspended ultra-fine particles. Blood, for example, carries nutrition and oxygen to the body cells.
This led to studies with colloidal silver (electrical silver atoms). An electro-colloidal process, which is known to be the best method, is used for manufacturing the colloidal silver.
Colloidal silver appears to be a powerful, natural antibiotic and preventative against infections. Acting as a catalyst, it reportedly disables the enzyme that one-celled bacteria, viruses and fungi need for their oxygen metabolism.
They suffocate without corresponding harm occurring to human enzymes or parts of the human body chemistry. The result is the destruction of disease-causing organisms in the body and in the food."
-- Nanotechnology in Medicine and Antibacterial Effect of Silver Nanoparticles, Department of Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, published in the Digest Journal of Nanomaterials and Biostructures Vol. 3, No.3, September 2008, p. 115-122
"Silver is highly toxic to most microbial cells and can be used as an antimicrobial agent. Silver-containing compounds, such as silver sulfadiazine, which has broad antimicrobial as well as antifungal activity, and silver nitrate, are used in medicine as topical agents. Colloidal silver is a suspension of extremely small silver particles and was used in medicine until the 1940s as both a topical and an internal antiseptic. Colloidal silver was also known as argentum colloidale, argentum crede and collargolum."
-- PDR For Nutritional Supplements by Sheldon Saul Hendle and David Rorvik, pg 110
"Like werewolves and vampires, bacteria have a weakness: silver.
The precious metal has been used to fight infection for thousands of years — Hippocrates first described its antimicrobial properties in 400 bc — but how it works has been a mystery.
Now, a team led by James Collins, a biomedical engineer at Boston University in Massachusetts, has described how silver can disrupt bacteria, and shown that the ancient treatment could help to deal with the thoroughly modern scourge of antibiotic resistance.
...Collins and his team found that silver — in the form of dissolved ions — attacks bacterial cells in two main ways:
It makes the cell membrane more permeable, and it interferes with the cell's metabolism, leading to the overproduction of reactive, and often toxic, oxygen compounds.
Both mechanisms could potentially be harnessed to make today's antibiotics more effective against resistant bacteria, Collins says."
-- Scientific American, June 20, 2013, Silver Makes Antibiotics Thousands of Times More Effective
“Silver’s microbe-killing properties aren’t news—in fact, people have known about them for centuries, says Dr. David Barillo, a trauma surgeon and the editor of a recent silver-themed supplement of the journal Burns. Alexander the Great stored and drank water in silver vessels when going on campaigns in 335 BC, he says, and 19th century frontier-storming Americans dropped silver coins into their water barrels to suppress algae growth.
During the space race, America and the Soviet Union both developed silver-based water purification techniques (NASA’s was “basically a silver wire sticking in the middle of a pipe that they were passing electricity through,” Barillo says). And new applications keep popping up: Barillo himself pioneered the use of silver-infused dressings to treat wounded soldiers in Afghanistan. ‘We’ve really run the gamut—we’ve gone from 300 BC to present day, and we’re still using it for the same stuff,’ he says.
No one knows exactly how small amounts of silver are able to kill huge swaths of microbes. According to Barillo, it’s probably a combination of attacks on the microbe’s enzymes, cell wall, and DNA, along with the buildup of silver free radicals, which are studded with unpaired electrons that gum up cellular systems. These microbe-mutilating strategies are so effective that they obscure our ability to study them, because we have nothing to compare them to. ‘It’s difficult to make something silver-resistant, even in the lab where you’re doing it intentionally,’ Barillo says.
But unlike equal-opportunity killers like endosulfan, silver knocks out the monsters and leaves the good guys alone. In low concentrations, it’s virtually harmless to humans. ‘It’s not a carcinogen, it’s not a mutagen, it’s not an allergen,’ Barillo says. ‘It seems to have no purpose in human physiology—it’s not a metal that we need to have in our bodies like copper or magnesium. But it doesn’t seem to do anything bad either.’”
-- PBS, Nova Next, March 24, 2015
“Silver is beautiful — and a killer. The shiny white metal is a natural antibiotic. That means it kills bacteria. People have recognized this benefit since ancient times. Wealthy Romans ate using knives, forks and spoons made of silver. They understood that silver helped keep spoiled food from making them sick. In fact, historians think that is how we came to call eating utensils ‘silverware.’
Today, eating off silver is more about wealth than health. Still, silver continues to play a role in medicine. Doctors use silver-coated bandages to kill germs that might infect burns and other wounds. Silver also is sometimes used to coat medical devices, such as breathing tubes. This can reduce the likelihood that patients on ventilators (to help them breathe) will develop pneumonia from exposure to germs.”
-- SocietyforScience.org, Nanosilver: Naughty or Nice?, August 2015
"Silver - both in liquid solution and as an airborne-aerosol - has been known since 1887 to be extremely toxic to anthrax spores. And it is widely reported in the medical literature on silver that various forms of silver, often at surprisingly low concentrations, routinely kills germs that are known to be antibiotic-resistant."
-- International Anti-Aging Bulletin, April 1999, by James South, MA
"Colloidal silver just might be the next germ-fighting wonder drug. And not just for the serious threats making headlines: It's also effective against bacterial infections like strep throat, viruses like the flu, and fungal infections like Candida. No matter how much a germ mutates, it can't change enough to escape the damaging effects of colloidal silver. And in the process, the silver doesn't harm human tissue or kill off the good bacteria in the intestine the way antibiotics and other medications do."
-- Dr. Jonathan Wright, MD
"Thanks to eye-opening research, silver is re-emerging as a wonder of modern medicine. An antibiotic kills perhaps a half-dozen different disease organisms, but silver kills some 650. Resistant strains fail to develop. Moreover, silver is virtually non-toxic."
-- Science Digest, "Our Mightiest Germ Fighter" by Jim Powell, March 1978
"Colloidal silver has a long history in medicine as a natural antibiotic. It is very effective in killing bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites and the cancer microbe. No serious side effects from overdosing have been reported."
-- The Natural Way to Heal by Walter Last, pg 161
"Topically, it can be used to fight fungal infections of the skin or nails and to promote the healing of burns, wounds, cuts, rashes, and sunburn. It can be used on toothaches and mouth sores, as eye drops, and as a gargle to fight tooth decay and bad breath. It can also be used as sterilizer and can even be sprayed on air-conditioning filters and air ducts and vents to prevent germs from growing."
-- Prescription For Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A Balch CNC and James F Balch MD, pg 66
"Pierce Instruments in Stowe, Vermont, markets Silvelon, a nylon-Silver fabric used to make odor-proof socks and shoe-liners, antiseptic kitchen sponges, wound and burn healing aids, and topical applications to speed healing of cuts, canker sores, warts, and acne releasing colloidal silver on site. Argentum Research has Silverlon."
-- Anti-Aging Manual by Joseph B Marion, pg 12
"All of the organisms that we tested were sensitive to the electrically generated silver ion, including some that were resistant to all known antibiotics...In no case were any undesirable side effects of the silver treatment apparent."
-- Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D., Syracuse Medical University
"In the United States, colloidal silver is not approved for medical use. Companies that sell colloidal silver or the equipment to make it are forbidden by the FDA to tell their customers about colloidal silver's healing properties.
Interestingly, this has not stopped major pharmaceutical companies from producing other silver products that are approved for medical purposes. These products include silver gels, for cuts, burns and wounds (silver sulfadiazine cream, a compound, is extensively used); silver coated bandages, widely and successfully used in hospital burn units; and various silver compounds, for other purposes.
The existence of these products makes it difficult for government agencies to deny the health benefits of silver any longer."
-- Nenah Sylver, PhD, The Rife Handbook – Chapter 3 excerpt, "Colloidal Silver"
"Another benefit to using silver is that it does not appear to create the same amount of resistance in bacteria as traditional antibiotics. Ian Chopra, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Leeds, reported in a 2007 article in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy that there are fewer than twenty published reports of silver resistance in bacteria...Professor Chopra went on to indicate that 'current evidence suggests the clinical threat [due to silver resistance] is low' because of the 'multifaceted mode of action of the silver ion.'"
-- S.M. Foran, Therapeutic Properties of Silver: an Historical and Technical Review
"Silver compounds have been used as medicine since the late 1800's and have been used as a treatment against infections by hundreds of thousands of individuals in the United States. Silver is a natural mineral in the same class as zinc, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, magnesium, molybdenum, vanadium and zinc which are important for health maintenance. Humans naturally ingest from 22 to 300 mcg of silver per day from natural sources in food and water (1,2). Levels of silver vary in foods with the highest reported levels being in immune boosting mushrooms with up to 5mg/ kg of silver. There is evidence that silver is a natural critical component of our immune system and that low tissue levels associated with a dietary deficiency may result in a relatively weakened immune system, making one more prone to infection. The modern versions of colloidal silver (oligodynamic silver) are shown to have little or no toxicity."
-- Dr. Kent Holtorf, Holtorf Medical Group, "Safety and Efficacy of Intravenous Oligodynamic Silver"
"To treat ringworm, use a sterile pad and apply colloidal silver to the affected area. Hands and feet can also be soaked in this solution, a natural antibiotic that destroys some 650 different microorganisms."
-- Prescription For Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A Balch CNC and James F Balch MD, pg 388
"Silver's germ-fighting ability will soon get a workout in new uses. The metal kills disease-carrying microbes without the harmful side effects of chlorine, or other sanitizing chemicals. Silver will one day be laced into socks, dish towels, toothbrushes. Even home appliances, heating and air systems will use it. Industrial uses too... treating water and cleaning food processing gear"
-- Kiplinger Letter for Business, May 4, 2001 issue
"Colloidal silver. Dose: Internally-60 to 120 drops three to four times daily. Externally, applied to a wound or burn-two to three times daily."
-- Herbal Medicine Healing Cancer by Donald R Yance Jr, pg 314
"Colloidal silver is commercially available with a common solution strength of five silver atoms per million molecules of water, or 5 ppm, but it may be up to 50 ppm in very concentrated remedies. However, the size of the colloids may be more important than the strength in parts per million."
-- The Natural Way to Heal by Walter Last, pg 162
"Taken internally, colloidal silver can be used to fight infection. It has been shown to be effective against more that 650 disease-causing organisms, including Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria and the fungus Candida albicans."
-- Prescription For Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A Balch CNC and James F Balch MD, pg 66
"I know of no microbe that is not killed by silver in laboratory experiments in six minutes."
-- Dr. Henry Crooks, M.D. (1921)
"Silver's ability to aid the immune system has been well documented for more than 100 years. For example, in 1909, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that electrically generated silver ions increased white blood cell production. As we noted earlier in our overview of the human immune system, white blood cells are critical factors in human immunity, aiding the body in the destruction of cancer cells, viruses, bacteria, and other invaders. What's more, while white blood cells are the defenders of the human body, red blood cells carry life-giving oxygen to all tissues and organs. So silver apparently aids in both immune defense and in the support of life itself, by boosting both our body's red and white blood cells counts.
In 1939, researchers Hill and Pillsbury made similar findings, demonstrating an increase in white blood cells after silver usage [see: Hill, WR, D Pillsbury, Argyria: The Pharmacology of Silver, The Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore, 1939; p. 48.] And over fifty years later, researchers Remes and Williams found that silver ions appear to 'prime' white blood cells to go on the offense against a variety of biological insults [see Remes, A, Williams, DF, Neutrophil Polarization and Immunoelectrophoresis Assays in the Study of Complement Activation by Biomaterials, Biomaterials, Aug 1991; 12(6):607-13.] Furthermore, in 1919 Dr. H. Bechold, writing in his groundbreaking book of the era, Colloids in Biology and Medicine, cited evidence that silver ions increased both red and white blood cell counts.
And in their study Argyria - The Pharmacology of Silver (Williams & Wilkins, 1939), researchers W. Hill & D. Pillsbury reported that 16 rabbits were injected with silver of arsphenamine at intervals from three to seven days. (The silver content of the drug was 14.5%.) A majority of the rabbits showed a gradual increase in oxygen-carrying hemoglobin and red blood cells during the experiment. In more recent studies conducted in the 1970's, such as Treatment of Orthopedic Infections with Electrically Generated Silver Ions by Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D., it is reported that silver ions give a healthy boost to human blood cell production. This may be related to the fact that silver is a "transitional element" giving it the ability to form complex ions. This attribute gives silver the potential to interact on a cellular level in the same way as other complex ions such as vitamin B-12, chlorophyll, and heme (iron), a component of red blood cells.
And in the 1980's researchers Berger, Marino and Spadaro confirmed that electrically generated silver ions boost human blood cell production. These findings lead to the obvious conclusion that while low white blood cell counts open the door to serious immune system risks, and low red blood cells lead to oxygen starvation of the body's tissues and organs, electrically generated silver ions may help successfully counter these risks by stimulating both white and red blood cell production."
-- The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual, Barwick, Steve, Life & Health Research Group, LLC; www.UltimateColloidalSilverManual.com
"Dr. Marchial-Vega has had considerable clinical experience with a colloidal silver preparation that contains between 20 and 25 parts of silver per million parts of water. This preparation has proven effective in patients with HIV in quickly resolving pneumonias due to pneumocystis, streptococcal, staphylococcal, klebsiella and fungal infections. In the hospital, the therapy is administered by a special nebulizer as well as orally."
-- Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work by James Howenstine MD, pg 262
"Silver belongs to the family of metals that also includes copper and gold (both of which can also have numerous health benefits when they're used properly). One of the primary concerns people tend to have about using these metals is the risk that they'll accumulate in the body and lead to heavy metal toxicity. But if you have plenty of antioxidants in your diet, such as selenium, vitamin E, and amino acids like N-acetyl cysteine, you're safe from any harmful effects from this family of metals. Germs, however, are not."
-- Dr. Jonathan Wright, MD
""Pure Silver is entirely non-irritant. In tests at very high concentrations, it has been shown repeatedly that the rapidly exerted disinfectant action is of considerable therapeutic value."
-- Colloidal Preparations of Silver in Pharmacy, British Medical Journal, February 1923
"Sinus symptoms... You can also use 1 or 2 drops of colloidal silver or liquid pine bark extract in each nostril once or twice a day... Eye or ear problems, including cataracts, glaucoma, redness, blurred vision, poor eyesight, ringing in the ears, earaches, soreness or swelling of the ears, eardrum damage, hardness of hearing, and (in rare cases) loss of hearing: Use 1 drop of colloidal silver topically (directly in the eye or ear) 3 times a day."
-- The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health by Robert O. Young, PhD, pg 178.
"What we have done was rediscover the fact that silver killed bacteria, a fact which had actually been known for centuries...All of the organisms we tested were sensitive to the electrically generated silver ion, including some that were resistant to all known antibiotics...In no case were any undesirable side effects of the silver treatment apparent."
-- The Body Electric, Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D.
"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."
-- Dr. Joseph Weissman, M.D. board certified immunologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California Medical School
