So a great page that I follow, about Australian wildlife care and rescue, recently shared a post about the health benefits of colloidal silver, claiming it was a potent antibiotic, with no effect on the human body, that Big Pharma had supressed in favour of more profitable ventures.They shared this from a page called Cancer Truth which claims to have knowledge of secret cures that 94% of doctors dont even know about because of... you guessed it, Big Pharma conspiracies. I was so distraught that such a great page could be associated with such blatant quackery and misinformation that I decided to try and spread some real information in the comments. I will copy what I wrote here, and would really like if anyone could let me know if you think I sounded like I was being rude or disrespectful, rather than my intended tone of concerned and a little bit frustrated: Silver IS NOT harmless to the human body. Your skin turning a greyish-blue colour is a condition called Argyria, which is an irriversible (without laser therapy) build up of silver particles, usually in the skin, which is mostly a cosmetic issue but it can also build up in the eyes, and can cause damage to the lens, in the kidneys and the liver, and in rare cases can cause neurological conditions to develop. Some people are also allergic to silver. Like most alternative medicines, colloidal silver is mostly unregulated, and the concentration you receive varies greatly. Also, silver is an antiseptic, not an antibiotic, and while there is some weak evidence to support its use as an antimicrobial, every medical authority site I can find states that it does not condone the use of silver for any medical reason let alone as a personal treatment for any condition. While the people who write and spread this misinformation might genuinely believe it and mean well, you need to be very careful about health claims on the internet, especially about alternative medicine. Good sites to check are the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in America. Generally, you should be very wary of anyone claiming that their health treatments have been supressed by governments or Big Pharma, that they can tell you What doctors dont want you to know or any claim of a secret cure to anything. Always look for the evidence, because it so easy to be caught up in wonderful sounding claims. Look after yourselves :)
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 04:08:35 +0000