Excellent work, Jeff! Far too many folks would be too intimidated to even attempt to research and refute the argyria claim.
I'll be straightforward on the question. I don't know that a whole bunch of us aren't going to turn blue someday. It's no more *proven* that CS is perfectly safe than it is *proven* that it's dangerous. What we have (and *all* that we have) are widespread anecdotal evidence, a few limited studies, and some straightforward computations we can do that suggests we'll be okay: * Nobody we know of has turned blue yet from taking pure, small particle, electrolytically made colloidal silver. Some experimentors have been taking many ounces per day for a number of years. * The only folks we know of who *have* turned blue have had extreme occupational exposure to silver dust or silver compounds, or used **doctor prescribed** nostrums containing high concentrations of silver salts or other silver compounds. Most of these cases seem to date back to the 50's or before. * I've heard tell of some folks who have fed large quantities of CS to laboratory animals with no ill effects. I can't point to the specific study, so I hope someone else on the list can give us a URL. * If you compare the quantities of silver metal known to be required to develop argyria with the amount consumed in any reasonable use of low concentration CS you'll quickly recognize that we are at least a couple of orders of magnitude lower. * Finally, a couple of folks here have done tests that show that a large amount, if not substantially all, of the silver ingested from CS is excreted by the body over a reasonable period of time. Combine this with the low quantities mentioned in the last point, and you'll see an even greater margin of safety suggest itself. The only areas of concern I would mention are these: There are some silver preparations available that advertise concentrations of many tens of ppm to several hundred ppm. Since most of our experience is with CS that is 20 ppm or less, users of those high concentration preparations should be careful *not* to overuse their product based on other people's reports of using larger quantities of 5-10 ppm CS. Adjust dosage for the concentration of the product so total silver metal consumed is similar. Some of the products sold as CS, particularly by health food stores and some MLM's, are over-priced and of questionable quality. Some have been tested and shown to contain little or no silver, artificial color, additives, or chemical residues from bulk manufacturing processes that are not the same as we talk about here. I also recommend that if you haven't used CS before, or you are trying a new or different product, to always start out with an extremely small first dose. I'm talking about a few drops to a half teaspoon or so. There may be some people who respond badly to silver, possibly because of an allergic reaction. A very small initial dose will lessen the chance of a serious reaction. Also, be aware of the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, or Herx, also known as a healing crisis. This occurs when you kill off pathogens in your body, releasing the toxins in their cells into the blood stream all at once. This, again, suggests starting small and increasing the dose slowly to avoid intense or severe reactions. All that being said, I want to repeat that we have no guarantees. Unless and until multi-megabuck studies can be done, this stuff remains experimental and you're using it at your own risk. The only person who can decide if it's safe to try is you, after gathering as much information as you can and consulting whatever professional advisers that you trust. Be well, Mike Devour silver-list owner Disclaimer: I, MICHAEL DEVOUR, DISCLAIM ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE USE OR MISUSE OF THE INFORMATION, INCLUDING LINKS, PROVIDED ON THIS LIST. EVERY INDIVIDUAL SHOULD OBTAIN COMPETENT MEDICAL ADVICE BEFORE USING THIS INFORMATION. THIS FREE INFORMATION HAS NOT BEEN VERIFIED BY ME AND IS PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES TO INDIVIDUALS INTERESTED IN THESE TOPICS. [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [mdev...@eskimo.com ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: silver-list-requ...@eskimo.com -or- silver-digest-requ...@eskimo.com with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com>
