Lawn Sale said:
I'm always skeptical of "snake-oils", but every now and then a new step in the technological stairs is added, bringing us higher towards our goals.
It's actually one of the oldest steps in technology going and was very popular up until the discovery of the wonder drugs in the late 1930's like penicillin. Then those antibiotics became so popular that colloidal silver faded into the background. Now that modern antibiotics have little effect against so many of the so-called super bugs out there, colloidal silver is gaining interest again because it's said to be the only thing that will kill those particular strains of super bugs when nothing else will.
Supposedly it has no negative side effects, other than the rare case of parts of someone's skin turning blue if they happened to consume gallons of the stuff on a regular basis. Yikes! It's non-toxic unless you abuse it tremendously.
I guess it's more well-known in Europe than it is here and I'm sure if there's anything to it, the drug industry here would like to keep it that way, although in this one article it says:
"Used in the space shuttle. When will we see silver in our everyday life for non-medical use? It seems it is already more prominent in our lives than most people realize. In the former Soviet Union, silver is used to sterilize recycled water aboard space shuttles. NASA has also selected a silver/water system for its space shuttle. Internationally, many airlines use silver water filters to guarantee passenger safety against water-borne diseases such as dysentery. The Swiss government has approved use of such silver water filters in homes and offices. In the U.S some city municipalities use silver in the treatment of sewage. Silver works so well in purifying water that it is sometimes used to purify swimming pool water. It didn't sting the eyes as chlorine does, and it does kill mosquito larva. An experiment conducted in Nebraska demonstrates its effectiveness: fifty gallons of raw sewage were pumped into a pool without any disinfectant. A standard measure of contamination is the count of E. coli, a bacteria organism found in the intestinal tract. The count soared to 7000 E. coli cells per milliliter of water. When the water was exposed to silver electrodes, within three hours it was completely free of E. coli."
http://www.drclark.net/bulletin/cs.htm
In another article....
"Dr. Henry Crooks showed Colloidal Silver to be absolutely harmless, and non-toxic to humans, and highly germicidal. Colloidal Silver has proven itself useful against all species of fungi, parasites, bacteria, protozoa, and certain viruses."
http://www.quantumbalancing.com/news/cs_historical.htm
Wouldn't it be nice to carry a 2oz bottle of it hiking, instead of the usual water filters, if we could be sure of its germ-killing qualities? A couple of months ago my wife and I went on vacation to Mexico and from hearing so much about the water there deicided to bring a small bottle of colloidal silver with us. While there, I ingested a teaspoon of it every other day and had no bad symptoms on the trip. Now can I attribute that to the colloidal silver? No, but it didn't hurt, and it gave me confidence when I was there that I wouldn't get sick. Now I make sure I have a small bottle of it handy in the medicine closet and I think the premise of what it can do does hold merit.
Anyway, getting back to the original post, I think a combination of filtering and handwashing with waterless cleaner is the best preventive measure as to avoiding giardia. I just bought some waterless handwashing cleaner at EMS that was really cheap and it supposedly kills all bad germs on your hands just by letting it dry. Just the same, on any extended hikes, I'm gonna take a little vial of colloidal silver just to make sure!
