Talk:Medical uses of silver/Archive 12

Mastcell comment
"Secondly, please be aware that your assessment of consensus may be complicated by the fact that at least one editor (me) has chosen to limit further interaction with you, due to what I feel is your unwillingness to heed or consider anyone else's input and your disregard for this site's content policies. MastCell Talk 18:31, 12 April 2013 (UTC)"
 * May I kindly ask to reconsider your opinion? I agree with many things of Blakbeue and Wdford for example and consider their inputs, as well as of all the editors. Interestingly, I also have agreed with your two suggestions: One appeared at the DRN discussion and the other one regarding creating a separate article for cs. I've always called and continue to call to have a genuine discussion based on AGF regarding all the points in which we do not have a full understanding of each other. My goal is not to prove my point, or my position or my views, my goal is to develop a balanced article for over-hyped substance. Ryanspir (talk) 14:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Silver-coated endotracheal breathing tubes
We say the following:citing three 2012 reviews I can't access the full version of these but I'm concerned by the degree of confidence with which we say this product reduces the incidence of VAP, when the abstract of says,  "The limited evidence from meta-analysis of two RCTs showed that using silver-coated ETTs reduced the incidence of VAP, microbiologic burden, and device-related adverse events among adult patients. Additional rigorous randomized trials are needed to confirm these findings."
 * a review in the BMJ
 * a review in Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases
 * a systematic review in Journal of Evidence Based Medicine

I've added the bold text:

Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I recently tried to fix the grammar of that bit and may have cast too positive a perspective in the process. Your changes are better.  Thanks. Desoto10 (talk) 20:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Colloidal silver
My observation tells me, that mostly people who have tried cs are considering it favorable and people who didn't try, but know about it from information sources are considering it unfavorable. While this fact should not affect the editors and the article in the ideal world, we are not yet living in one and Wikipedia realizes it per WP:BIAS.

I was born without any information regarding cs :). And wasn't aware of it up until a few years ago. Out of interest I decided to try it, because I have had some continuous problems with my bladder that various anti-biotics couldn't clear. I have purchased one bottle of homemade cs and it produced a positive effect, however I must admit that it didn't result in cure.

Once I have developed problems in my stomach, after eating some bad food. A typical food poisoning. In that case cs has cleared everything and resulted in full cure within a short period of time. My stomach was gurgling and almost immediately after drinking cs it subsided and all the symptoms vanished and the stool became normal.

I have read claims that it protects against colds and so when I went to an area where many people would cough and have running nose I decided to take it because I would stay, sleep and eat in their community for about a week. From my childhood I have had problems with tonsils, to the point that a specialist had advised to surgically remove them. I didn't do that operation and is generally very susceptible on getting colds. Almost anytime I'm around people who are coughing, I'm getting a cold, especially if a share a meal with them. This time I was walking with my head up among all that sneezing and coughing as if protected with a magical shield. :) And, I didn't develop cold, so it has worked in this case.

My general opinion about cs is: it seems to affect many conditions without curing them, just giving a relieve or some level of improvement. Therefore I think more research into cs should be committed that would result in more effective action and penetration to various tissues. I think current cs doesn't penetrate well to many tissues.

While I find cs somewhat effective, I'm interested in a balanced article without pro- or neg- inclination. Ryanspir (talk) 12:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Kindly avoid to restructure my input. To clarify, my own story with cs was posted in relation to WP:BIAS. In my opinion this article is biased and majority of the editors are biased, and that is including myself. Such systematic bias is being recognized by the Wikipedia as a normal phenomenon.
 * I'm suggesting to the editors to try to drink the cs for a few days. If they will feel no benefit, they well know for sure that they are on the right way to discredit cs. If however they will feel benefit, they might be inclined to take a look at the 20+ articles Medline/Pubmed indexed and peer reviewed, some are secondary sources. Ryanspir (talk) 13:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Redaction of Article
This article was three to four times larger a year or two ago and had much more medical information on the uses of colloidal silver in modern medicine. What has happened? Why has the article been redacted in a fashion that seems to _exclude_ important information and just serve up the most basic and mediocre statements possible? Is this supposed to be in the aid and furtherance of knowledge or is the aim here to dumb down, remove knowledge and pretend that data storage "space" is an issue for a plain text encyclopedia's text that can be stored on 10 to 20 giga harddrive... What is the audience we re adressing ? 5th graders? It's completely LUDICROUS to even BEGIN a discussion with people who think knowledge somehow can become better and more "succinct" by dumbing it down and _removing_ information, but that seems to be the general idea that prevails among Wikipedia moderators these days. To what ends and what logic behind as rationalization I am at a complete loss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.15.70.244 (talk) 10:27, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

silver in its zero valence state
This record contains information for silver in its zero valence state only. For general toxicity and environmental fate of silver ions and silver compounds, refer to the SILVER COMPOUNDS record; for compound specific information, refer to the appropriate individual records, e.g., silver nitrate, silver iodide, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.15.70.244 (talk) 12:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

History Medical uses of silver ....Europe.... europe.... europe? YEP REAL HISTORY RIGHT HERE!!!
Okay after the wiki editors are done dribbling over europes findings, i would like to ask them to add a write up in the history section about the use of metals in The indian ayurveda,such as the use of gold and silver ash for drinking drinking purpose via extration. maybe even add the use of this before the 20th century?92.236.96.38 (talk) 17:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)ISEEYOU

Silver Interactions (in Adverse Effects)
At present the section says this... "Colloidal silver may interact with some prescription medications, reducing the absorption of some antibiotics and thyroxine among others."

I propose changing it to something like this...

"Colloidal silver may interact with some prescription medications, reducing the absorption of some antibiotics and thyroxine among others. The risk is described as 'theoretical' and 'moderate. However, in-vitro research and experiments with mice has suggested combining silver with antibiotics may make the antibiotics 'ten to 1000 times' more effective. The research shows that silver can be used to enhance the action of existing antibiotics against Gram-negative bacteria, thus strengthening the antibiotic arsenal for fighting bacterial infections."

My reasoning is this: The claim about adverse interactions is fairly extraordinary and I believe the usual rule is that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. I've researched this claim quite considerably and can't find anything substantial to support it. The claim appears to come from the NCCAM website, but that website provides no reference for where they got it from. I believe NCCAM may have got it from the 'Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database'(NMCD) as I have a vague recollection that NCCAM actually cited NMCD as the reference for this claim prior to their latest update. If thats where NCCAM did get the claim then its fair to add the comment to this article that the risk is 'Theoretical' and 'Moderate' as thats how its actually described on the NMCD site (if you go to the trouble and expense to subscribe). But a further problem is that NMCD does not cite any reference for where they got the claim from either. So basically we have a claim here that is repeated but cannot be verified.

On the other hand we now have a very credible piece of research from scientists affiliated with institutions such as Boston University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that suggests that in fact the opposite may be true and that silver may actually enhance the effectiveness of antibiotics and some other drugs.

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/190/190ra81 (OK, I admit its not as credible as Quackwatch but its the best I can do. :)

And heres the consumer version.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2344583/Silver-really-COULD-new-weapon-superbugs-Adding-antibiotics-boosts-effectiveness-1-000-times.html

So, does this article continue to carry an extraordinary claim about adverse interactions simply on the uncited sayso of the NCCAM? (That hardly seems like 'extraordinary evidence' to me). Or do we delete the claim until better citations are provided? Or, do we at least balance the article with cited information about an alternative theory? (And the original claim IS undoubtedly a 'theory'). Or could the new information go in another section such as 'Mechanism of action', which seems to me to be almost entirely theoretical.

I look forward to your considered commentsBlakebeau (talk) 12:21, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The claim that a drug may interact with other drugs is not in any way "exceptional". Drug-drug interactions are the norm, not the exception, and do not fall under WP:REDFLAG. The material about potential drug-drug interactions is adequately sourced to reliable secondary sources per WP:MEDRS. Regarding, this paper makes no claims whatsoever about colloidal silver and thus should not be misused to promote colloidal silver or to imply that it has any effectiveness. It may be appropriate for inclusion (subject to limits on the use of primary studies) in the section on "Mechanism of action". MastCell Talk 19:39, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree theres nothing exceptional about 'interactions' but to claim the interaction is 'adverse', to actually name the drugs, and (of all things) to claim it 'reduces absorption', I do find rather exceptional. So I'd like to see a better reference for that. Whilst 'original sources' are not RS, shouldn't we at least know what they are so we can check that they actually exist and are not misquoted? Look, personally I dont care if it interacts or not. I just think that at the moment its a very poorly supported claim even if it is from a normally MEDRS source.
 * I also agree is not directly related to colloidal silver so I have no desire to see it misused, but I do think it suggests that the claim about 'interactions' should be better sourced. 'Mechanism of Action' may indeed be a better place for it.  Incidently, thanks for finding it on PUBMED. I guess that now makes it WP:MEDRS. I had previously only seen it in the Science Translational Medicine Journal.Blakebeau (talk) 00:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Mastcell you said 'this paper makes no claims whatsoever about colloidal silver'. A close read of the abstract at and the UK Mail article suggests that colloidal silver may be exactly what they are talking about. They describe how silver works as a stand alone product and how it works 'when given at the same time as antibiotics'. They are not talking about silver/antibiotic compounds so what else could it be other than some kind of colloidal silver?  I need to get the full article.   This could turn out to be the most significant piece of research into colloidal silver ever. A real turning point!Blakebeau (talk) 02:44, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That study used exclusively ionic silver, i.e. "We used ionic silver (Ag+) in a silver nitrate salt (AgNO3) and found substantial antimicrobial activity (~3 log) at 30 μM against log-phase growing Escherichia coli, a model Gram-negative bacterium". The word "colloidal" does not appear. -- Scray (talk) 04:30, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Please, not that argument again! Home-made and commercially produced 'colloidal silver' is about 85% ionic. And Silver Nitrate was the type of 'colloidal silver' that turned Rosemary Jacobs blue. So, no matter how you try to twist it, these guys were using 'colloidal silver'. I hope even Mastcell will agree that the old 'ionic silver is not colloidal silver' argument is basically dead.Blakebeau (talk) 05:59, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Scray, you appear to have access to the full research article. Does it actually say that silver might increase effectiveness by '10 to 1000 times', or is that just journalistic hyperbole?Blakebeau (talk) 12:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is another summary from Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/silver-makes-antibiotics-thousands-of-times-more-effective-1.13232

I will try to dredge up where the adverse effects comes from. In any case, the present study is a very very early primary investigation into in vitro and animal model effects of combinations of silver nitrate when combined with antibiotics. Silver nitrate is NOT colloidal silver. It is not even a colloid. It is a solution of silver ions and nitrate ions. If the basis of the claims of silver-antibiotic interactions are from humans, then the present paper does not apply. If the claims are based on in vitro and/or animals, then we should clarify. Desoto10 (talk) 05:29, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding the source for the interactions. I wrote to the NCCAM and asked for the source. I received a reply today... "The source for the statement 'Colloidal silver may interfere with the body’s absorption of some drugs, such as certain antibiotics” is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) consumer advisory, “Dietary Supplements Containing Silver May Cause Permanent Discoloration of Skin and Mucous Membranes (Argyria).' You can access this October 6, 2009, consumer advisory on the FDA Web site at www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/SafetyAlertsAdvisories/ucm184087.htm." The next step is to email the FDA and ask them where they got it from.Blakebeau (talk) 06:08, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Re my previous comment that I would contact FDA for a reference for the dubious claim about silver reacting with antibiotics. I did, and the response was that I would have to file another request in writing to another desk because the source may be subject to a freedom of information order. Seriously!! This claim is so obscure that no-one can provide information about the original source without an FOI request because the source may want to remain anonymous! I say this possible adverse effect is BS. Its a claim with no credible original source and could not have any reliable invivo research to back it up anyway (because there is no invivo research on silver at all).Blakebeau (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 00:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Silver makes antibiotics thousands of times more effective
I do not see this being mentioned in the article. Could somebody add it? Here is the Nature article: http://www.nature.com/news/silver-makes-antibiotics-thousands-of-times-more-effective-1.13232 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.54.160.146 (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

While this intensifying effect of Ag on antibiotics may result in some kind of clinical value in the future, right now the experiments are on mice, and, as the author mentions, the toxicity of silver may hinder future development.Desoto10 (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yup this is a new right up. It is a research finding and not yet clinically applicable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Medical uses for silver
This article should only contain actually accepted medical uses of silver as the title states. Not the wishful or delusional medical uses for silver. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24231525 http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2012/RA/C2RA20684F#!divAbstract http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/7/575.full http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009898110005139 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842741101602X http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6861293 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25027045 To name a few links. The person most often referenced in support of silver's safety profile is "Dr" Alan Lansdown. I use quotations because he is not a doctor, medical or Ph.D. in any field. He is a lecturer at the Canterbury Christ Church University school of business. The field of expertise he lists for himself aren't even related to metal toxicity. He lists his expertise as being in the service industry. Not only are most claims about the benefits of colloidal silver inaccurate at best but the claims of its safety profile are complete fabrications. Soluble silver, which is in colloidal silver, has a known toxic effect on biology. I don't understand how there is a claim that there isn't any data to support the known fact that silver builds up in the body with toxic effects. 2601:8D:8500:BD0B:D03F:D3C8:E830:DDAE (talk) 21:05, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that you have the correct "Lansdown". Amazon has a blurb about him:

About the Author


 * Dr Alan BG Lansdown is at Imperial College, Faculty of Medicine, Charing Cross Hospital, Department of Clinical Chemistry, London, UK. He graduated in biological sciences at Birkbeck College (University of London) and proceeded to train as a toxicological pathologist in the safety evaluation of new drugs, food additives, environmental contaminants and anaesthetic gases.

In his post-doctoral research, he specialised in the study of pathological mechanisms of pre-natal growth impairment through the action of infections in pregnancy and pre-natal bone development through a Medical Research Council Fellowship. Dr Lansdown has published more than 250 scientific papers and book chapters and lectured widely.

Do you have any concrete suggestions for article content or are you just venting? Desoto10 (talk) 03:40, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes I do have suggestions. Read any one of those links and it clearly states other dangers associated with soluble silver beyond cosmetic. I found it hard to find anything on Lansdown so I went with the only reference I could find. Regardless my premise does not change with respects to other studies finding actual dangers associated with it. I don't know how to respond to your question about venting. It's a passive aggressive way to phrase a question which is used to try and elicit an emotional counter response or imply something unflattering about me, such as I am simply emotional about it therefore I'm biased and my thoughts don't count, without you actually having to come out and directly insult me. I'm not interested in approaching anything on Wikipedia in such a manner. I have found from interacting with a relatively of mine who is into these kinds of things that it's not possible to convince them that there's no big pharma conspiracy or that a lot of alternative "medicine" is either inferior to current medicine or never worked well to begin with. But damage from heavy metals is a slow process over the course of years so it is not unreasonable to approach the use of heavy metals with caution. I realize there is not universally accepted definition of what a heavy metal actually is but by any definition I've seen silver is included.. Even Lansdowne states in his study that colloidal silver is safe if it's not used frequently. It just seems a disservice for an entity claiming to be an encyclopedia to omit evidence which is unfavorable towards colloidal silver just because you might be passionately in favor of it. I'm certainly not looking to try and change the perception of others who use it nor am I suggesting that the article should try to actively sway anyone to one side or the other. It should simply include both sides. My opinion, while not relevant to adding factual information, is that there are legitimate uses for silver in medicine and there are also exaggerated claims that lead to overconsumption of silver products. Which is why I brought it up in the talk section. It's not necessary to attack me for it.Cs41xy (talk) 22:05, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * As you may or may not be aware, we like secondary and tertiary sources around here, rather than primary studies. We especially encourage the use of reviews of clinical trials for medical articles.  If you can find these, then you should add a section on silver toxicity if you are inclined to do so. One problem that we have encountered here before relates to the different forms of "silver" that are available, from elemental Ag, to "colloidal" Ag, to "nanoparticles" of Ag, to silver salts, and to mixtures of these.  We need to try to describe which "silver" our sources are talking about.  I meant nothing by my snarky comment about venting other than trying to get you to actually edit the article rather than grouse about it! Desoto10 (talk) 04:04, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Lansdown quote and false 'colloidal silver banned for consumption' claim.
CFCF has introduced a raft of edits designed, it appears, solely to attack colloidal silver. He's even added a picture/info box to draw attention to his agenda. Well OK, thats fair as long as its accurate. But its not. His reference for his edit that the 'selling of colloidal silver for consumption' has been banned is a simplistic foreign language site. It looks like a 'silver for dummies' website to me. CFCF says its a Govt site but who knows? I'm not a Swedish reader. Clearly this is why Wikipedia states that English language references are 'preferred'. In the case of contentious medical issues I think that should say 'compulsory', but anyway, even when the site is translated it simply DOES NOT SUPPORT HIS CLAIM. It just says colloidal silver cannot be sold as a 'dietary supplement'. (In other words, medical claims cannot be made). It does not say it cannot be sold at all. If I was to bottle the stuff and sell it as a thirst quencher (its 99.999999% water after all), or with no health claims at all, then this would be perfectly legal.


 * Have I won this point? It seems you are no longer attempting to include this claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.213.156 (talk) 11:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

My other concern is CFCF's selective editing and moving of the Lansdown quote. Removing words such as 'in the human body' 'ingestion' and inhalation' is significant. Why was this editing done all of a sudden and why did he place it in such an illogical position? Obviously because its part of CFCFs anti-colloidal silver agenda. The full quote has been on Wikipedia years. Space is not an issue so leave it alone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.242.87 (talk) 03:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

not thrilled with Cochrane references
not thrilled with "Cochrane" references as source because there is a "relationship" between Wikipedia and Cochrane - to me this is no better than references pointing to other wiki articles :-( — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.134.108 (talk) 07:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? Desoto10 (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * There is a simple answer that Wikipedia and Cochrane has a relationship. It is a reliable source and pools data from many studies together (that's why school teachers tell you to use more than one source). That's why editors use it. To say that it is no better than references pointing to other wiki articles is wrong, one is reliable, the other is not. Ssbbplayer (talk) 04:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

FDA Final ruling and Summary.
This is the complete summary of the 1999 FDA ruling. As stated the decision was based on the lack of evidence of safety and efficacy, not on the existence of evidence to the contrary.

" ACTION: Final rule.  SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing a final rule establishing that all over-the-counter (OTC) drug products containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for internal or external use are not generally recognized as safe and effective and are misbranded. FDA is issuing this final rule because many OTC drug products containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts are being marketed for numerous serious disease conditions and FDA is not aware of any substantial scientific evidence that supports the use of OTC colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for these disease conditions.

DATES: This regulation is effective September 16, 1999." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.247.69 (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Paraphrasing the FDA
We have this ref that says "all over-the-counter (OTC) drug products containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for internal or external use are not generally recognized as safe and effective and are misbranded."

Have paraphrased / summarized it as "Colloidal silver is not recognized as safe or effective by the FDA."

IMO this better than the more long winded version in the lead "Over-the-counter drugs containing colloidal silver are not generally recognized as safe and effective by the FDA because of a lack of substantial scientific evidence to support their use for disease conditions."

People's thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The complete ruling is at the top of this talk page. Perhaps it could be abbreviated slightly but I dont think it should be paraphrased at all because it is already so often misunderstood. (For example there is a belief that the FDA banned colloidal silver and that sales are now illegal). In fact the FDA was mainly concerned about misbranding, false advertising, and efficacy of OTC colloidal silver. In other words, can it legally be called a 'drug' or can health claims be made? They decided "No". Fair enough. But 'Safety' (as pertains to toxicity) was not a major concern of the FDA as plenty of credible evidence had already indicated that silver had 'low toxicity'. I think your original paraphrase that reduced it to a comment solely about safety was biased and made it sound like the FDA had evidence that it was toxic. I think my original edit that simply abbreviated the FDA ruling to 'What they did and the reason they gave for doing it was entirely reasonable'. Its not like theres a limited space available for this.


 * My suggested abbreviation of this FDA ruling is this... "Over-the-counter drugs containing colloidal silver are not generally recognized as safe and effective by the FDA because of a lack of substantial scientific evidence to support their use for disease conditions", although if you want to remove the OTC reference I wouldn't argue.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.211.101.52 (talk) 01:18, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

References Bug
Hello, This is my first time posting on a wiki talk so here goes,

I just wanted to point out that due to either a human error or a technical glitch, reference 4 and 16 are exactly the same with the same doi and url. I was unsure of how to edit this and figured I should inform someone of this before I make it worse. :P — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethiom101 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Disruption
In view of the recent disruption by IPs, I have requested semi-protection for this article. Alexbrn (talk) 11:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I invited discussion in the TALK section that I added above. Did anyone read it? None of you added a jot to the discussion so I assume not. I would have preferred to have debated this here but ultimately I had no other choice than to present my case as edits to the article.Bolt376 (talk) 10:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)124.169.213.156 (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * What the heck? Now the section above has been deleted. Bolt376 (talk) 10:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.213.156 (talk) 11:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

It is archived because it constituted a WP:PERSONAL ATTACK. You may restore it, but I would suggest you remove reference to any fabricated agenda behind certain users edits. Carl Fredrik  💌 📧 11:35, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * OK. Reintroduced hopefully without anything you might consider to be a personal attack. Although i doubt anything of the sort existed.Bolt376 (talk) 10:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)124.169.213.156 (talk) 12:12, 9 October 2016 (UTC)