Infection-Fighting Silver Gains New Respect from News Media

Colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver tend to get a lot of negative press in the news media.

This is particularly true when the information sources being quoted are shills for Big Pharma which views colloidal silver as the #1 threat to its multi-billion dollar annual market in prescription antibiotic drugs.

But silver gets a lot of positive press, as well, particularly when the sources being quoted are researchers who are in-the-know regarding its many healing and infection-fighting benefits.

Here then are some brief excerpts from relatively positive news articles I’ve seen in the world press over the past few years regarding the oftentimes astonishing healing and infection-fighting properties of antimicrobial silver…

Hi, Steve Barwick here, for The Silver Edge…

Whether it’s being used as a defense against deadly, antibiotic-resistant superbugs…as a means of preventing infections in surgical applications…as a powerful water disinfectant…or even in its new role as a cancer-fighting agent…silver has been “big news” from time to time over the past few years.

Here are just a few examples of positive articles about the healing and infection-fighting benefits of silver, which have appeared in the world press in recent years:

Daily Mail (Britain):
“Silver, the New Weapon Against Superbugs”

“A new study from Boston University revealed that adding silver to antibiotics enhanced the drugs’ abilities to fight off lethal infections in mice.

…Through their tests, the team showed that just a small amount of silver made E. coli bacteria between 10 and 1,000 times more sensitive to commonly prescribed antibiotics, such as penicillin.

…Most importantly, the researchers showed that silver helped the antibiotic tetracycline fight a previously resilient strain of E. coli.

This signified that the combination of silver and antibiotics could be used to resensitize antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.

‘Overall, what we show is that small amounts of silver, non-toxic levels, can be used in conjunction with commonly used antibiotics to treat persistent infection and to treat bio-film based infections, which are problematic for medical implants,’ Collins said.’

— Daily Mail, “Silver Really Could Be the New Weapon Against Superbugs,” June 23, 2013

British Broadcasting Company (BBC):
“No Safe and Effective Replacements for Silver”

“The medicinal properties of silver has been known since at least the times of Hippocrates, the Ancient Greek “father of medicine”, and rely on its toxic effects on pathogens, including bacteria and fungi.

Silver ions kill pathogens by binding to proteins in their cells, making silver compounds ideal for use in antiseptics and wound dressings. Nanoparticles of silver are even woven into socks and other clothing to reduce bacterial and fungal growth – and the odours that arise.

Silver is also used in heart valves and catheters, and researchers are now investigating silver’s potential in killing cancer cells…says Alan Lansdown, an expert in medicinal uses for silver at Imperial College London.

“There aren’t really any effective and safe replacements for silver, except synthetic antibiotics.”

— BBC Smart Planet, “Silver: The Harsh Realities Behind Diminishing Supplies,” April, 18, 2012

New York Times:
“Silver One of Humankind’s First Weapons Against Bacteria”

“Silver, one of humankind’s first weapons against bacteria, is receiving new respect for its antiseptic powers thanks to the growing ability of researchers to tinker with its molecular structure.

Doctors prescribed silver to fight infections at least as far back as the days of ancient Greece and Egypt. Their knowledge was absorbed by Rome, where historians like Pliny the Elder reported that silver plasters caused wounds to close rapidly.

More recently, in 1884, a German doctor named C.S.F. Crede demonstrated that putting a few drops of silver nitrate into the eyes of babies born to women with venereal disease virtually eliminated the high rates of blindness among such infants.

But silver’s time-tested if poorly understood versatility as a disinfectant was overshadowed in the latter half of the 20th century by the rise of antibiotics. Now, with more and more bacteria developing resistance to antibiotic drugs, some researchers and health care entrepreneurs have returned to silver for another look.

This time around, they are armed with nanotechnology, a fast-developing collection of products and skills that helps researchers deploy silver compounds in ways that maximize the availability of silver ions – the element’s most potent form.

Scientists also now have a better understanding of the weaknesses of their microbial adversaries. One of the urgent goals is to prevent bacterial infections that each year strike 2 million hospital patients in the United States and kill 90,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Such infections are usually treated with large doses of antibiotics and sometimes with repeat surgeries. They cost the U.S. health care system roughly $4.5 billion annually, and the challenge is growing with the spread of drug-resistant microbes.”

— New York Times, “Old Curative Gets New Life at Tiny Scale,” December 20, 2005

Los Angeles Times:
“Bacteria Can’t Become Silver-Resistant”

“But Dr. David Weber, an infectious disease and public health expert at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, isn’t convinced that silver resistance will prove much of a problem.

Resistance to antibiotics occurs quite readily in bacteria once prolonged exposure to, say, penicillin, occurs. But there’s little reason to suppose that resistance to silver would develop so easily, he says.

An antibiotic like penicillin works by hitting a bacterium in a limited fashion, at specific sites. Because the killing is done precisely, the bacterium has a good chance of developing a mutation that would confer resistance.

In contrast, silver kills microbes in a broad, unspecific fashion – like tossing a bomb at a bacterium. It hits many essential points such as a bacterium’s entire respiratory system. This makes it much more difficult for silver-resistance to develop.

And even if tolerance did develop, Weber says, increasing the dose of silver the bacterium is exposed to will solve the problem in most cases.”

— Los Angeles Times, “Will Bacteria Develop Resistance?” August 4, 2008

Daily Mail (Britain):
“Silver is Precious for Your Health”

“Before the discovery of antibiotics, surgeons used to stitch wounds with thread woven with silver as they believed it helped to prevent infection.

Meanwhile, bandages were laced with silver in the First World War, as it was thought to help save lives. And they were right.

As shown in more than a thousand medical studies, silver has powerful antiseptic and wound-healing properties. So just what are the health secrets of this precious metal?

‘Research has shown that silver is a powerful antimicrobial agent that is non-irritating and non-toxic,’ says Valerie Edwards Jones, professor of microbiology at Manchester Metropolitan University. ‘Recent studies have shown that silver can kill up to 650 species of pathogenic microbes.

‘The metal consists of thousands of tiny silver ions,’ she says. ‘These prevent bacteria, viruses and fungi from spreading by entering the cell and deactivating proteins. The microbes cannot reproduce and die, so the spread of infection is prevented.’

There has been a resurgence of medical interest in silver, according to Prof Edwards Jones, because it effectively kills antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA.

‘Silver could also combat skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis – topical cream containing one per cent silver can suppress the kind of inflammation found in these allergic skin conditions.’

And silver may also one day be used as an internal antibiotic-In a study at the University of Texas, silver particles killed 100 per cent of the HIV virus within three hours. It also killed the flu virus as well as the antibiotic resistant superbug, MRSA.”

— Daily Mail, “Shining Secret that Makes Silver Precious for Your Health,” February 27, 2010

Scientific American:
“Silver Makes Antibiotics More Effective”

“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, “Silver Makes Antibiotics Thousands of Times More Effective,” June 20, 2013

Wall Street Journal:
“Silver Kills Harmful Microbes”

“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, “The War Against Germs Has a Silver Lining,” June 6, 2006

Pravda (Russia):
“Silver: Best Defense Against Bacteria and Viruses”

“The best defense against swine flu, or any flu, is the age old remedy of colloidal silver. The metal silver in its colloidal state can be safely consumed and used in the body.

Bacteria and viruses cannot develop resistance to colloidal silver. Silver disables a vital enzyme and mechanism in all bacteria and pathogens so that they cannot survive.

It is good to take a few teaspoons of colloidal silver daily to maintain health. More colloidal silver should be taken if experiencing illness.”

— Pravda, “Colloidal Silver Can Be the Best Defense Against Swine Flu,” March 4, 2009

The Gleaner (Jamaica’s oldest newpaper):
“Residents Say Colloidal Silver Cures Everything”

“Colloidal silver was used by doctors in the early 20th century, but after the development of more modern antibiotics, its use dwindled. Since the 1990s, however, there has been a resurgence of its use amid claims that it is a cure-all.

Colloidal silver is now in Jamaica and several residents who have used the product are reporting amazing health benefits, dubbing it the miracle water.

Among them is 56-year-old Norman Campbell, popularly known as Boy Blue, of Standfast district in Browns Town, St Ann. Campbell told The Gleaner that he had an enlarged prostate, but after taking the water in prescribed doses for three months, the problem went away.

Tzdhne Ishigyhd, a Rastafarian who lives in the Corporate Area, said she is a lupus survivor and since using colloidal silver, the disease has gone into remission.

Another woman, Erna Hunter of Steer Town, St Ann, said the miracle water has lowered her blood sugar level, got rid of pain in her legs, and got rid of her sinus-related problems…

… Many people, since they have tried it, they have come back and say yes, it has made a difference in their lives. It’s like a gift sent from God, Hall stated.”

— The Gleaner, “The Miracle Water – Residents Say Colloidal Silver Cures Everything,” June 15, 2013

Daily Mail (Britain):
“Silver Kills Cancer as Effectively as Chemotherapy”

“Silver can kill some cancers as effectively as chemotherapy and with potentially fewer side effects, new research claims. Scientists say that old wives tales about the precious metal being a ‘silver bullet’ to beat the Big C could be true.

The metal already has a wide range of medicinal uses and is a common antiseptic, antibiotic and means of purifying water in the third world.

And British researchers now say that silver compounds are as effective at killing certain cancer cells as a leading chemotherapy drug, but with potentially far fewer side-effects…

…The [researchers] compared it to Cisplatin, currently used to treat a wide variety of cancers, but known to have harsh side effects including nausea, vomiting and even kidney damage.

Silver is used already in everyday products such as deodorant with no known side-effects, and could make for a potentially cheaper alternative to platinum-based Cisplatin…

…Researchers from the University of Leeds conducted lab tests which exposed breast and colon cancer cells to various silver-based chemicals over a six day period.

Results, published in journal Dalton Transactions, showed that these silver-compounds were ‘as effective as Cisplatin’ at killing cancer with potentially fewer side effects.

While the team are still unsure about how exactly silver battles cancer, they think its effectiveness may be caused by the structure surrounding silver atoms, known as its ligand.

They think this may help release the silver ion into cells when it enters the body, killing any cancer.”

— The Daily Mail, “Silver Bullet for Cancer: Metal Can Kill Some Tumors Better Than Chemotherapy With Fewer Side Effects,” February 2, 2012

Science Daily:
“Silver Treats Cancer With Fewer Side Effects”

“The Internet is awash with stories of how silver can be used to treat cancer. Now, lab tests have shown that it is as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug – and may have fewer side-effects.

Results from the study at the University of Leeds, published in Dalton Transactions, show that particular silver compounds are as toxic to cancer cells as the platinum-based drug Cisplatin, which is widely used to treat a range of cancers.”

But the crucial difference is that silver is thought to be much less toxic to healthy human cells, and in some cases, can be beneficial. Silver is currently used for its antiseptic and antibiotic properties, in bandages, wound dressings and water purification filters in the third world.

In Britain, Dr. Roger Phillips, from the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics at the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, Britain, and Dr Charlotte Willans from the University of Leeds, are leading the charge in developing new, silver-based anti-cancer treatments.

Says Dr. Phillips about this new research:

“We have chosen silver because it has anti-cancer activity but it is inherently non-toxic to normal tissues. This project is therefore exciting because there is the possibility that we can develop a drug that is as active against tumors as Cisplatin but will be less toxic to normal tissues.”

— Science Daily, “Silver Bullet to Beat Cancer?” February 2, 2012

The Telegraph (Britain):
“Silver Destroys Disease-Causing Viruses”

“Scientists have discovered that they can attach tiny studs of silver onto the surface of otherwise harmless bacteria, giving them the ability to destroy viruses.

They have tested the silver-impregnated bacteria against norovirus, which causes winter vomiting outbreaks, and found that they leaves the virus unable to cause infections.

The researchers now believe the same technique could help to combat other viruses, including influenza and those responsible for causing the common cold.

Professor Willy Verstraete, a microbiologist from the University of Ghent, Belgium, unveiled the findings at a meeting of the Society for Applied Microbiology in London last week.

He said: ‘We are using silver nanoparticles, which are extremely small but give a large amount of surface area as they can clump around the virus, increasing the inhibiting effect.’

Dr Michael Dempsey, a biologist at Manchester Metropolitan University who has studied the effects of silver nanoparticles on microorganisms, said: ‘A nanoparticle contains around 15,000 atoms of silver according to some recent research from China on how they work…

…This means a high concentration of silver atoms come into contact with the micro-organism, punch a hole in its wall and destroy it.'”

— The Telegraph, “Bacteria Turned Into Silver Bullet to Combat Flu,” October 16, 2010

Daily Mail (Britain):
“Silver Beats Antibiotic Resistance”

“Silver could be a precious weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Scientists have shown that giving tiny amounts of silver at the same time as antibiotics makes the drugs up to a thousand times more effective.

The finding comes in the wake of warnings by Britain’s top doctor that the rise of drug-resistant superbugs could trigger an ‘apocalyptic scenario’ in which even routine operations such as hip surgery become deadly because we have run out of antibiotics.

…In experiments on mice, the Boston University researchers found that giving silver with antibiotics made them between ten and a thousand times better at fighting infections. In some cases, bugs classed as antibiotic resistant became treatable.

…The drugs could be laced with silver or covered in a fine coating of the precious metal and used to tackle dangerous stomach bugs, urinary tract infections or hard-to-treat films of bacteria that coat catheters.

The research, detailed in the journal Science Translational Medicine, also worked out how silver helps kill bugs.

The metal makes bacteria more ‘leaky’, allowing antibiotics to get inside them and kill them.

Plus, it boosts production of oxygen molecules that aid and abet the death.”

— Daily Mail, “Silver Really COULD be the New Weapon Against Superbugs: Adding it to Antibiotics Boosts the Effectiveness by 1,000 Times,” June 14, 2013

The Ivy Leaf (U.S. Army, Iraq)
“Silver Water Filters Stop Waterborne Diseases”

“As the scorching Iraqi sun blazed down on a little boy in a village, he cupped his hands together to drink water from a canal running through the middle of his town, unaware that 11,000 children like him die from water-borne diseases every day around the world who drink from similar canals.

As a way to resolve the local water problem and prevent tragedies such as this, leaders from 1st Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, requested the help of a college professor to teach local Iraqi potters how to make clay/sawdust ceramic filter pots capable of decimating 99.88% of water-borne disease agents.

…To accomplish this, Richard Wukich, a college ceramics professor who teaches at Slippery Rock University in Pittsburgh, volunteered to instruct two Iraqi potters how to make the ceramic filters during his free time between semesters. He traveled to Iraq and spent two weeks training his new charges.

Wukich began his class by teaching the apprentices how to make clay pots with a mixture of saw dust, which is uncommon in Iraqi culture. The saw dust disappears during the clay baking process, creating several small holes that act as a filtering system inside the pot.

After crafting several pots, Wukich taught the trainees how to coat the pots with colloidal silver, an incredibly fine particle that kills bacteria and organisms and does not allow bacteria to grow into a culture inside the pot.

The pots are either painted with a brush or dipped into a container containing a colloidal silver and water mixture.

After the colloidal silver is completely absorbed into the pot, it is placed on the mouth of a 5-gallon receptacle container. The filter is then covered with a lid or a piece of fine cloth. Users pour water into the fine cloth to filter out extremely turbid water.

As the water enters the clay pot, the filters inside the clay leave small dirt particles behind and the colloidal silver destroys any bacteria in the water.

The clear and clean water then drips into the 5-gallon receptacle at a rate of 1-1.5 quarts-an-hour. “This project was originally initiated by Capt. Richard Nardo,” said Wukich.”

— The Ivy Leaf, U.S. Army, Iraq, “Water filter provides factions reason to unite, combat water problems in region”, September 17, 2006

PBS, Nova Next
“Small Amounts of Silver Kill Huge Swaths of Microbes”

“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

Time Magazine
“Silver-Plated Germ Fighters”

“When it comes to simple solutions to complex problems, we are repeatedly told “there is no silver bullet.” But it turns out there just might be. New research from Boston University suggests that adding silver to existing antibiotics can make the antibiotics 10 to 1,000 times as effective by interfering with a pathogen’s metabolism and making its cell membrane more permeable to drugs that can kill it.

Silver has been used as an antimicrobial since antiquity (Hippocrates prescribed its use in 400 B.C.) and there has been recent research to determine the effectiveness of silver compounds in treating cuts, burns and wounds, but the results have been mixed and its use limited because the mechanisms of how silver works in the body haven’t been well understood. That may be changing, and it’s a development that comes in the nick of time.

The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as deadly MRSA and Clostridium difficile, is a growing public health crisis, particularly in hospitals where drug-resistant infections kill tens of thousands each year. The researchers hope that silver can be used as a coating on existing antibiotics as well as incorporated into medical implants to help prevent or eradicate infections that often occur during such medical procedures. The challenge, says Boston University medical engineer James Collins, is that “the number of antibiotic-resistant strains has been growing, and the number of new antibiotics being approved are dramatically dropping. So instead of trying to develop a completely new antibiotic, we are trying to enhance the ones we already have.”

— Time Magazine special issue, 100 New Scientific Discoveries 2014

Scientific American
“Silver Shows Its Mettle Against Bacteria”

“Silver’s long been a medical treatment. Hippocrates himself applied it to open wounds. But its use as a cure for contagion fell by the wayside with the discovery of penicillin, and the source of its bug-blasting abilities remained a mystery. Until now.

Researchers treated E. coli bacteria with small amounts of silver. They found that the metal messes with the bugs’ proteins, wreaking havoc on their metabolism. It also generates reactive chemicals that attack the microbes from within.”

— Scientific American, “Silver Shows Its Mettle Against Bacteria,” July 1, 2013

Corning Observer/Appeal-Democrat
“Avoid a Cold or Flu with Colloidal Silver”

“The weather is finally cooling down and the holidays are quickly approaching. However, along with the arrival of family gatherings and celebrations often comes the arrival of an uninvited guest, a cold or the flu.

If you are striving to stay well this holiday season, it would do you well to keep a bottle of Colloidal Silver on hand.

Colloidal Silver is a clear liquid or yellowish liquid that contains microscopic silver ions. It dates back to the Egyptians, who used it to treat a variety of ailments of their times…

Collodial Silver works by disabling the enzyme that bacteria need to reproduce. If the bacteria can’t reproduce, then they die.

This treatment has been shown to be effective against staph infections, strep bacteria, sinus infections, pneumonia bacteria, urinary tract infections, skin wounds, ear infections and a host of other ailments.”

— Corning Observer/Appeal-Democrat, “An Apple A Day: Avoid a Cold or Flu with Colloidal Silver,” November 10, 2015

Sunday Times of India:
Keep the Cold Away (Get More Silver)

“Believe it or not, it’s not just the bling you wear that can make you in tune with the season. Silver is an important mineral that wonderfully aids immunity.

Drinking/eating with silverware or from water bottles/matkas in which you have kept small silver coins infuses ions into the liquid, which again has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.

You can also get electrodes of silver that are commercially available, which can be put into water, thereby releasing ions. Consult a doctor.”

— Sunday Times of India, “Keep the Cold Away, When It’s Time to Play,” December 20, 2015

Democrat & Chronicle/USA Today Network
Silver Ions Kill Germs

“Scientists have known for decades that silver ions can kill germs.

Silver ions kill bacteria at the cellular level. Most germs have a negatively charged outer membrane called peptidoglycan. When positively charged silver ions appear next to a germ, it slides into the membrane and unravels the germ’s proteins that are responsible for reproduction. When the germ can’t reproduce, it effectively suffocates and dies.

Using silver for sanitation is already an accepted practice in medicine. Most intravenous (IV) needles have silver in them and so do catheters. Surgeons even use silver for stents in heart surgery.

Rosalind Volpe, executive director of North Carolina’s Silver Nanotechnology Working Group, said there are 450 silver-based products available globally.”

— Democrat & Chronicle/USA Today Network, “Perinton man is selling germ-killing cloths lined with silver,” January 28, 2016

BullionStreet
“How Silver Kills Bacteria Finally Revealed”

“The use of silver in medicine is as old as medicine itself, but how it works has been a mystery ever since. Hippocrates is known to have used it to treat ulcers and wounds, the Romans almost certainly knew of its healing properties, its use continued through the middle ages and up to the present day…

Here is silver’s multi-pronged approach: first, silver sticks very strongly to sulfur, found in parts of proteins. These sulfur groups normally bond to each other in proteins, holding them together and keeping the protein folded up in its correct shape. But if silver interacts with sulfur then the protein cannot fold correctly, and thus it cannot do its job. Next silver interferes with how bacteria use iron. Iron is often held in the places it is needed by binding to sulfur. And since silver also interacts with sulfur it stops the iron doing so.

Finally, silver causes bacteria to produce extremely toxic substances called reactive oxygen species. These go on to cause damage inside the cell, harming the DNA, proteins and even the membrane that surround cells.

The net result of this silver onslaught is bacteria with severely damaged defenses. Most importantly the membranes and walls that surround it are leakier after the silver treatment…So 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.”

— BullionStreet.com, “How Silver Kills Bacteria Finally Revealed,” June 20, 2015

Record Searchlight of Redding, CA
Colloidal Silver Stops Colds and Flu

“Have you had a cold or the flu that’s stayed on too long? Sick of those cruddy viruses that don’t seem to go away?

Each year it seems like more people get sick and instead of getting over their illness it lingers. In fact, it may hang on to the point that it’s with you in some form the following cold and flu season. I’ve treated patients like that.

Here are some ideas to get you over the crud and keep it away. For starters, have a look at colloidal silver or silver hydrosol-type products. Using silver to fight a virus has been done since the early 1900s and fell out of popularity when antibiotics hit the scene.

These products have been improved upon and are available in drops, sprays and foams for ease of use. Colloidal silver is thought to work by suffocating the virus, thereby disabling enzymes needed for a virus to replicate. Take as directed.”

— Record Searchlight, “Dr. Trudi Pratt: Suggestions For Preventing a Cold or Flu,” February 20, 2016

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Lubbock, TX
Young Scientists Find Colloidal Silver Works to Keep Chronic Wounds from Infection

“A team of young scientists is taking its wound-care research project to Washington, D.C. Team Silver Bullet is a national finalist in the 2016 eCYBERMISSION STEM program, sponsored by the US Army. The group of incoming eighth-graders already advanced through a regional competition to represent Texas and a large portion of the country. That means an initial pool of 17,000 students is down to just five teams – including Whiteface’s – from across the nation.

Kaden and teammates Blade Henry, Kaylah Deavours and Elizabeth Casarez, all 13, studied treatment of chronic wounds in the age of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Their solution: Silver. They’re looking for alternatives to traditional antibiotics, which are being overused,” said Laura Wilbanks, faculty sponsor.

Some of the patients most likely to benefit are diabetics, they said. “Sometimes when people have diabetes, if they get a wound it’s harder to feel it because the blood sugar numbs it,” said Blade, who has a family member with the disease. Not noticing a wound means delaying treatment, which can increase the risk for infection.

The project involved preparing petri dishes with nutrient agar, a medium that supports the growth of organisms. The test subject was bacteria. “It feeds bacteria so bacteria can grow on it and you can test different things to keep bacteria in control,” Kaylah said.

Of the four medical treatments they tested, the most effective proved to be colloidal silver, a product that contains silver particles suspended in liquid. “It can break down the biofilms so medicine can get through,” Blade said. Kaylah chimed in, “Without hurting exterior skin.” She then explained, “It has anti-microbial properties, which is the ability to fight off bad bacteria.”

Team Silver Bullet recommends injecting colloidal silver into a bandage, then using it to cover a wound. Elizabeth summarized the group’s real-world findings: “I learned from this experiment that antibiotics don’t always work, so colloidal silver could be a really good thing for chronic wounds.”

— Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, “Whiteface Young Scientists to Present Medical Research in National Contest,” June 20, 2016

Richmond County Daily Journal
Silver Stands Out Like a Knight in Shining Armor

“In the field of medicine, silver stands out like a knight in shining armor, because it kills bacteria and does not seem to hurt human tissue.

Credit must be given to the Belgian surgeon Antoine Depage, who during the First World War, stressed the need for cleaning or debriding wounds, and who used silver foil and powder to prevent bacteria from growing and infecting the wound. As a result, thousands of lives were saved. After the war, silver colloids were introduced in which the silver was reduced to small particles to improve its efficacy. This remained the first line of defense against infection until the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s.

In recent times, silver has come back into its own because of the increasing numbers of bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics. One of the ways that silver kills germs is by binding to the bacterial structures that make critical enzymes. After exposure to silver, the bacteria die because they cannot ‘breathe.’ Silver does not affect the same structures in humans.

In the last 10 years, very small nanoparticles of silver have become available, with sizes in the range of 7 to 89 nm, which means that 100,000 nanoparticles, laid end to end, would make up the diameter of the full stop at the end of this sentence.”

— Richmond County Daily Journal (North Carolina), “Metals that Hurt, Metals that Heal,” December 30, 2015

In Conclusion

Those excerpts are from just a few of the positive news articles on colloidal silver or other forms of antimicrobial silver I’ve seen in the world press, in recent years.

So it’s good to know that the news media doesn’t always fall victim to the hyperventilating claims of the shills for Big Pharma who constantly plant negative articles about silver in the press.

The truth is, colloidal silver and other forms of antimicrobial silver are used safely on a daily basis by tens of millions of people around the world. And more and more often, its astonishing disease-busting properties are being recognized worldwide.

You can learn how much colloidal silver to take daily, based on your body weight and the ppm (i.e., concentration) of the colloidal silver you’re taking, by reading the article at the link in this sentence.

And you can learn how to make your own high-quality colloidal silver – quickly and easily, in the comfort of your own home, and for less than 36 cents a quart – by clicking the link in this sentence.

If you’d like to know what sets the Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator – the world’s #1 best-selling colloidal silver generator – apart from all other colloidal silver generators, see the eye-opening article at this link.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back next week with another insightful article on colloidal silver….

Yours for the safe, sane and responsible use of colloidal silver,
Steve Barwick Signature
Steve Barwick, author
The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual

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Important Note and Disclaimer: The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof. The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics. He is not a doctor. Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The author is simply reporting in journalistic fashion what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage. Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only, and approached with caution. Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments and opinions stated herein. All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional. Readers are solely responsible for their choices. The author and publisher disclaim responsibility and/or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine.