A ‘cure’ that gives the blues
Anytime a new, frightful disease spreads, false cures are sure to follow. The Associated Press reports that the Simply Silver company in Ohio is advertising a way to protect against the West Nile virus. All one has to do is drink silver and for $27.90 the company will sell you a kit to make your very own silver drinking water. “Silver has no proven medical benefit, period, and that is something that has been proven time and time again by the medical community,” said Dr. Stephen Barrett of Allentown, Pa., a retired psychiatrist who investigates medical fraud. “But if you’re selling a quack method (of treatment), you apply it to anything that comes along and worries people.”
Silver is the modern day snake oil. Internet sites boasts that it is a cure-all for 650 maladies. None of it proven. Silver is no more likely to guard against the mosquito-borne West Nile virus than it is to cure AIDS.
The only thing that drinking silver is known to do is turn your skin a blue-gray tint, permanently. We doubt Simply Silver warns its customers of this side effect.