By Tony M. Isaacs

The recent widespread mainstream media coverage of the “blue man” Paul Karason and his rare skin condition known as Argyria is the latest in a series of largely misleading and sensationalized scare stories about the dangers of colloidal silver turning a person’ skin blue.

Although this latest story did not appear to originate from mainstream medicine or the FDA, there is little doubt that they have welcomed it with open arms and have been quick to trot out “medical experts” and past FDA warnings to help “sing the blues” about colloidal silver.  The truth is that mainstream medicine has a very good reason to cry long and loud about colloidal silver, because it does represent a very real danger – a danger to the huge profits of the pharmaceutical industry’s patented antibiotics.

The truth is that silver has been used effectively by mankind to fight germs and ailments for thousands of years, and the instances of it turning people’s skin blue are so rare as to be almost non-existent.  As a matter of fact, almost all of the relative handful of reported instances have involved one or more of the following: older silver products that contained as much as 10% or more silver (compared to mere parts per million in modern colloidal silver), silver nitrate, home made colloidal silver that was contaminated with salt, and silver that has been consumed continuously in very large quantities over a very long period of time.

In the case of Karason, he made his own ionic silver at home for almost two decades and for many years consumed a quart or more per day.  I daresay that any prescribed or over the counter medication whose recommended dosage was a couple of teaspoons a day would do far worse than turn a person blue if they drank a quart or more of it a year!  Karason actually appears to enjoy his notoriety as the Papa Smurff blue man, and even though he sings the praises of how colloidal silver saved his life and the many ailments he believes it cured, the focus of attention is on his blue skin - a condition that is actually reversible despite mainstream claims to the contrary.

What is also true about colloidal silver is that it is far safer, more effective and less expensive than the marginally effective and side effect laden mainstream antibiotics - and has mainstream and university studies proving it which date back to the early 1900's.  The best and strongest of the FDA approved antibiotics are effective for a handful of bacteria at best, whereas colloidal silver is supremely effective against just about every kind of single celled pathogen, including bacteria, fungal growths and viruses (which antibiotics are often wrongly prescribed for, despite the fact that antibiotics have no effect on viruses).

If the public were told the truth, a rarity when it comes to mainstream drugs versus natural competition, colloidal silver would represent a huge threat to literally billions of dollars of profits and so it is no wonder that mainstream medicine and their allies in the mainstream media are once again loudly singing the blues – just as they have repeatedly done in the past with misleading stories and studies about a great many popular natural plants, supplements, vitamins and minerals that represent threats to mainstream drug profits because they are safer, more effective and less expensive alternatives to the unnatural, side effect laden, hugely expensive and marginally effective synthetics created in the labs of the powerful world pharmaceutical empire.

While there are a great many natural threats to mainstream profits, whose use and track recordsof safety and effectiveness date back hundreds and even thousands of years, perhaps no natural alternative to mainstream drugs represents as big of a threat to industry profits as colloidal silver, and it is no coincidence that colloidal silver has been placed at the very top of the FDA/mainstream medicine hit list.

However, when it comes to warning and scaring people away from silver, both the mainstream medical industry and the FDA have serious credibility problems. First of all, silver has a history of safe and effective use dating back thousands of years. In addition, it continues to be widely used today, including being used by NASA, the US military and Potters for Peace for water purification, being used as a germicidal agent by hospitals and medical suppliers and recently was incorporated into a new line of hospital pajamas to prevent the spread of infection, to name just a few of it's present day uses.

The biggest credibility problem of all for mainstream medicine and the FDA regarding silver is likely how they both approved and embraced silver for medicinal use at one time. yet now would have us believe that silver is both ineffective and dangerous. At one time silver products were very much in favor with both mainstream medicine and the FDA.  No fewer than 34 different prescribed and over-the-counter medications containing silver were not only widely sold by industry, they were also approved by the very same FDA which now seeks to warn us of its dangers and have us believe it is ineffective.
 

What changed their minds?  Perhaps the obvious answer can be found in the fact that silver fell out of favor at the very same time that patented sulfa drugs and patented antibiotics created in drug company labs came on the market.  Once that happened, the non-patentable silver was no longer a tool for healing, but a threat to profits.

Zealous protection of mainstream approved drugs and suppression of natural competition is nothing new - look at the estimated 100,000 or more deaths caused by Vioxx before the FDA finally removed it from the market.  Look at the ridiculous actions of the FDA when it threatened Washington cherry growers for telling the truth about the health benefits of eating cherries, or at the storm trooper actions against the makers of Charantia (bitter melon) tea in Florida who dared put references to some of the 650 plus PubMed studies and citations about bitter melon on their website.

The FDA persecutions and prosecutions of cherry farmers, bitter melon, and a long line of other natural alternatives points out just how extreme the protection of the big drug companies products and profits really is.  Consider this: other than issues of national security, only in natural health is it a crime to tell the truth due to the way the FDA has construed their rules and definitions to protect industry.  For example, if a company were to advertise that vitamin C was a cure for scurvy, as everyone knows is true,  that company could be prosecuted for selling unapproved drugs.  The same would be true if a company printed a testimonial from someone who reported health benefits due to vitamin C, or any other vitamin, mineral, supplement or non FDA approved drug.

For example, only the makers of FDA approved drugs can use the word cure, or even imply and health benefits without the FDA considering the product a drug.  The catch is that in order to be FDA approved, no matter how many PubMed cited studies or other studies have been performed, and no matter how much of a history of hundreds or thousands of years and users, the FDA only approves drugs that go through its specific approval process – one that costs hundreds of billions of dollars.