Big Pharma Funded Activist Groups Behind the EPA Petition to Regulate Silver

by Tony Isaacs


Recently it was revealed that a handful of the activist agencies behind the petition to the EPA to regulate nano-silver as a pesticide have received funding from pharmaceutical giant Merck, which annually has hundreds of billions of dollars in profits from patented antibiotics which many believe are less effective, less safe and far more expensive than colloidal nano-silver products. Now, further investigation has discovered that the initial revelations may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Merck and other pharmaceutical companies' funding of the groups who support the EPA petition.

The actual source of the funding that was first revealed in emails and colloidal silver blogsites was the John Merck Fund which was set up in 1970 by Serena Merck, the widow of Merck Pharmaceuticals CEO George W. Merck, in honor of their short-lived son John. The recipients of funding who are signees on the petition to the EPA were identified as:


Funding To Activist Groups-----------------Total Donated---Time Frame
Center for Food Safety $1,305,000.00 1999 – 2005
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy $490,000.00 1992 – 2003
International Center for Technology Assessment $247,500.00 1999 – 1999
Consumers Union of the United States $90,000.00 2000 – 2001
Greenpeace $80,000.00 2000 – 2002
Friends of the Earth $45,000.00 1992 – 2000


The Center for Food Safety (CFS) which along with its sister organization the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), initiated the EPA petition and enlisted the other groups which signed off on the petition, received the second largest amount of funding of any group from the John Merck Fund - second only to the huge total of the Tides Center/Tides Foundation, whose total funding of almost $2.7 Million dwarfs the combined total of $1.75 Million given to the CFS and the ICTA and CFS.

Tides Foundation & Tides Center $2,693,000.00 1989 – 2005

http://www.activistcash.com/foundation.cfm?did=138

As it turns out, the top funding recipient Tides Foundation and Tides Center are also actively involved in the petition to regulate silver, as well as the source of funding and support to several of the other groups who signed the EPA petition. When one goes to the Tides Center website, their position is apparent to one and all with the posting of a press release urging support of the EPA petition:

http://www.tidescenter.org/news-resources/news-releases/single-press-release/article/epa-petitioned-to-stop-sale-of-260-products-containing-nanosilver/index.html

Information on Tides Center's website and other web searches found the following Tides Center/Tides Foundation connections to groups not listed as Merck funding recipients:

* Center for Environmental Health (a project of the Tides Center)
* Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (previous funding and connections with the Tides Foundation)
* Clean Production Action (a Tides Center project)
* Food and Water Watch (receives donations from the Tides Foundation)
* The Loka Institute (has no current offices but was previously provided office space and a mailbox in Washington. DC by the International Center for Technology Assessment in their offices)

In addition, a $200,000 grant for 2006-2007 from a second Merck Foundation, the Merck Family Fund to another petitioner, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, was discovered.

A quick internet search reveals that Merck is not the only pharmaceutical company which provides funding to the Tides Foundation and Tides Center, as this listing of the top funding recipient from the Pfizer Foundation demonstrates:

Funding To Activist Groups----------Total Donated------Time Frame
Tides Foundation & Tides Center $300,000.00 2003 – 2004


The Tides Foundation is described by Activistcash.com as quickly becoming "the 800 pound gorilla for activist funding." As reported on ActivistCash:

The Tides foundation was established in 1976 by California activist Drummond Pike, Tides does two things better than any other foundation or charity in the U.S. today: it routinely obscures the sources of its tax-exempt millions, and makes it difficult (if not impossible) to discern how the funds are actually being used.

In practice, “Tides” behaves less like a philanthropy than a money-laundering enterprise (apologies to Procter & Gamble), taking money from other foundations and spending it as the donor requires. Called donor-advised giving, this pass-through funding vehicle provides public-relations insulation for the money’s original donors. By using Tides to funnel its capital, a large public charity can indirectly fund a project with which it would prefer not to be directly identified in public. Drummond Pike has reinforced this view, telling The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.”

Although determining the scope of funding for the Tides group as well as the individual activist groups would be difficult due to the efforts of many of them to insure anonymity, a quick web search turned up the following information for the Pfizer Foundation:

One can only wonder what other pharmaceutical funding is linked to these groups and shudder to think of how many activist groups have been corrupted by funding from Big Pharma and other companies with agendas that are anything but in the public interest.

It is easy to see how such subterfuge can corrupt decision making, the same as can paid lobbyists and political funding. Obviously it would be in the distinct public interest to require full disclosure of funding sources for every organization which petitions a government agency or legislative body to see where there might be funding sources who would stand to benefit as a result of the desired action or legislation.

Similarly, it would also be in the public interest to require full details of all the activities and efforts of lobbyists, including expenses and the details of each meeting held by lobbyists with government officials. While we are at it, we would also be a better informed and better served citizenry if every elected officials vote on any measure included donations and links to any companies or other entities affected by such legislation.

Granted, such reforms are a tall order, but until we see such altruistic change all the talk about true transparency in government is merely lip service - and the words from our own lips will continue to have little chance of reaching those whose ears are captured by the special interests who have bought off and otherwise rigged the process in their favor.


See Also:

"Action Alert: Stop EPA from Eliminating Access to Colloidal Silver"


Notes:

The complete list of groups who signed the petition to the EPA is: The International Center for Technology Assessment, the Center for Food Safety (the sister organization of the CTA), Beyond Pesticides, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, ETC Group, Center for Environmental Health, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition , Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Clean Production Action, Food and Water Watch, the Loka Institute, the Center for Study of Responsive Law, and Consumers Union.


Sources included:

http://www.silvermedicine.org/nano-silver.html

http://www.activistcash.com/

http://www.tidescenter.org/

A Small Supplement Company's Fight for Health Freedom

NaturalNews.com

by Tony Isaacs

For the past five years, the Utopia Silver Supplement Company has been waging a battle for health freedom against the giants of the State of Texas and the FDA -- one which may have major implications for all of us regarding the freedom of access to natural health supplements.

"This system operates on fear, you have no fear and that's a problem for us." - Texas district court official to Utopia Silver Company owner Ben Taylor.

Much like the Alamo defenders in days gone by, this small Texas company and its supporters of health freedom are pitted against a corrupt giant determined to impose its will and stifle freedom -- and just like the Alamo and the struggles that followed, the outcome may effect the freedom and future of millions.

The conflict began as a result of an FDA complaint five years ago that seeks to set a precedent for how much control the FDA has over all natural supplement companies and specifically the manufacture and sale of colloidal silver supplements.

While the Texas Attorney General's office may try to contend that this is merely a state action "to insure the safety of the citizens of the State of Texas", the truth is that the prosecuting Texas assistant attorney general and TDSHS officials are commissioned as officers of the FDA and there is no denying that the investigation into Utopia Silver began as a result of an FDA complaint. The certificates of Commission were obtained after several filings of Texas Public Information Act requests. Therefore, this is really a Federal action by proxy and it has pitted Utopia Silver Supplements against the Goliath of the FDA and the World Pharma lords the FDA serves.

The persecution of Utopia Silver began five years or so ago, about the same time that the FDA began renewed targeting of colloidal silver because of its effectiveness as a natural anti-biotic and rising popularity -- and, coincidentally, as a threat to the profits of Big Pharma and mainstream medicine -- the FDA sent an email to the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) essentially complaining that Utopia Silver was making medical claims which, in the eyes of the FDA turned their supplements into drugs. The TDSHS then brought the 'complaint' to the Office of the Texas Attorney General (TAG).

It has since been determined that among the targeted objections are: having 'disease' terms such as cancer, hepatitis, diabetes, etc., posted anywhere on the website; having any 'disease' terms in a search engine, and the posting of testimonials from customers who had used Utopia Silver products and defeated or improved any 'disease' condition.

Such restrictions appear to be a clear violation of the First Amendment (Freedom of Speech) of the Constitution of the United States of America, especially the supposed prohibition against posting testimonials and speaking the truth about how people believe that dietary supplements have helped them. If the FDA is to have their way, they will stifle a supplement company's constitutionally protected freedom of speech to the extent that a person seeking a natural dietary supplement for any medical condition would not be able to go to any website which offered vitamins, minerals, natural supplements or any other alternatives to mainstream medicine and be able to find that term in a search of the site or mentioned anywhere in the site. Neither would they be able to find testimonials/customer opinion from anyone who had used an alternative to FDA approved drugs and medical procedures.

It is no secret that the FDA has targeted colloidal silver, which is a safe, effective, natural and inexpensive pathogen destroyer -- four common traits of dietary supplements that represent competition to the approved drugs of Big Pharma and which frequently come under FDA attack. It is worth noting that the FDA at one time had approved 34 different prescribed and OTC (over-the-counter) medications containing silver, but withdrew approval at about the same time antibiotics came on the market and superior methods of making colloidal silver commercially and at home were devised.

The Texas state district court hearings and threatened trial are purportedly about licensing and inspections, but the FDA complaint was centered around the publication of customer testimonials which the FDA considers to be health claims that supposedly enable them to label Colloidal Silver and other Utopia Silver dietary supplements as drugs, and that too is part of the legal proceedings.

Although the State of Texas maintains that they are acting alone, Utopia Silver has obtained copies of individual certificates which show that the state health and AG employees are also "Commissioned Officers" of the FDA -- in apparent conflict with the separation of state and federal powers. It is Utopia Silver's contention that the actions to restrict them are unconstitutional restraints on the freedom of commercial speech (as borne out by previous Supreme Court decisions) and further contends that there is no constitutional jurisdiction for the state agencies, who are actually for-profit corporations (and they are listed as such by Dun and Bradstreet) disguised as constitutional entities.

Utopia Silver believes, as do many others including legal scholars, that much of the country's court system and agencies operate outside the Constitution as corporate entities, having no real jurisdiction until defendants unwittingly submit to the jurisdiction by entering into a "contract" with the courts and agencies through such measures as making a 'general' rather than a 'special' appearance before a court, entering a motion, applying for a license, hiring an attorney (who are themselves 'officers of the court'), etc. Such scholars and observers point to the yellow fringed admiralty flags flying in most of our courts as clear symbols that the courts are not constitutional courts but rather administrative corporate courts operating under the "color of law".

In the case against Utopia Silver, Taylor contends that there is no constitutionally mandated requirement for them to submit to what amounts to a commercial contract with the STATE OF TEXAS, a corporation acting under the color of law but not under the state or federal constitutions, and not in accordance with the God-given unalienable rights clearly declared by our forefathers when this country was founded.

So far the Texas Attorney General's Office (TAG), has given no indication of making a fair or reasonable settlement -- although in the Spring of 2005, the Assistant Texas Attorney General in charge of the case, Raul Noriega, first agreed and then reneged on an oral agreement that would have settled the case. When asked why, Noriega's response was that he was told by higher ups to proceed to trial despite the prior agreement to settle.

In the summer of 2006, TDSHS employees paid three separate visits to the Utopia Silver offices and demanded with a bogus warrant to make inspections. The first time, two TDSHS officers paid a visit. One identified himself as an "inspector" and the other as an "investigator". The owner of Utopia Silver, Ben Taylor, asked to see credentials so he could make copies. When they refused he ordered them to leave his premises and they complied.

The next day they returned, accompanied by two Texas State Troopers, and said they had a warrant. When Taylor demanded to see a supporting affidavit, they refused, saying he could go to Austin if he wanted to see it and threatening to arrest Taylor if he did not comply. At that point, Taylor began placing a phone call to the local sheriff, and the TDSHS employees and State Troopers beat a hasty retreat. It was later determined that no properly executed affidavit ever existed.

Two days later the TDSHS employees returned for a third time, just ahead of a Sheriff's Deputy. Taylor told them that since he was expecting the deputy to be there that morning to take statements about their previous visits, he would talk to them after he spoke to the deputy. He told the two TDSHS/FDA 'officers' to wait outside until the deputy took statements from four employees who had witnessed what had transpired the previous days.

"In the middle of the first statement," said Taylor, "the investigator came and asked to speak to the deputy. The deputy followed him to the lobby and I followed right behind. The TDSHS/FDA officer asked if I was going to comply with the warrant for an inspection. I again told him that I would talk to him when I finished with the deputy."

"He then proceeded to say that since I was refusing his inspection," Taylor continued, "would I sign a document stating that I refused inspection, and I said no and they meekly left. After that, we finished giving our statements to the Sheriff's deputy and so far they have not been back."

Since then, they continued to stonewall and refused to answer questions or otherwise attempt to make clarifications requested by Ben Taylor in accordance with the presiding judge's request for both sides to work together to try to work out an agreement. When Utopia Silver asked why they were being singled out for such actions and nothing was happening to similar companies, Assistant Attorney General Noriega said that it had been decided to make Utopia Silver a test case. After he made the statement, he was interrupted by the TDSHS officer, who, according to Taylor "proceeded to hem and haw on that point, obviously not comfortable with that statement having been made by the Assistant Attorney General."

At a subsequent hearing in the Fall of 2007, the judge stated that he was ordering a trial date to be set then and tried to first intimidate and then coerce Ben Taylor to agree to date for the trial. Mr. Taylor refused to agree, since in doing so he would be in effect entering into a contract to agree to the court's jurisdiction. At one point a deputy was summoned with the clear implication that Mr. Taylor might be arrested if he failed to agree.

Taylor, after various other tactics of intimidation by the judge, told the judge that, "The court might have the power to force me into a trial, but I will never agree to any trial date and will attend only "in propria persona" (in one's own proper person) by "special appearance" in order to defend my God-given Rights." (Note: an appearance may be either general or special; the former is a simple unqualified or unrestricted submission to the jurisdiction of the court where the defendant waives defects of service, the latter is for the purpose of objecting to the sufficiency of service or the jurisdiction of the court over a defendant without submitting to such jurisdiction).

Later, Taylor was told by a court official, "This system operates on fear, you have no fear and that's a problem for us."

Instead of setting a trial, a hearing was set before a new judge to determine a date for interrogatories and discovery as well as inspections and sanctions -- all of which are slippery grounds and another step towards a trial. At the subsequent hearing, Taylor again stated his objections to the jurisdiction and a new hearing was ordered to determine jurisdiction. When the new hearing was held and both sides presented their arguments, the judge rendered no immediate verdict and said she would take it under advisement and render a subsequent decision.

As expected, when the judge made her ruling she apparently ignored all evidence against the 'court's jurisdiction' entered by Taylor and co-defendant Adask, however she failed to do so pursuant to the State's own Rules of Civil Procedure, first sending an email of her ruling and then later sending a letter of the ruling when challenged about her emailing a 'court order'. Some observers believe that such an unorthodox method of 'delivering' a purported 'court order' was yet another in a string of ploys intended to trap Taylor, Adask and other defendants into unwittingly submitting to the court's jurisdiction.

Instead of accepting the improper service, Taylor sent his own "Notice of Insufficient Process" to the court along with a demand to the court and the prosecutor to "Cease and Desist" their fraudulent actions against Taylor, Adask and Utopia Silver.

Taylor's notice was sent on November 30th of last year -- and since it was filed, a silence has descended upon the case. As Taylor reports, "We haven't heard anything from the Texas Attorney General or the courts since late November of last year (about 230 days). At that time, the "judge" issued (by email initially) a court order denying my and Al Adask's (Anti-Shyster publisher and Texas State Supreme Court Libertarian Party candidate) special appearance." (As noted previously, a "special appearance" is one in which is made without submitting to the jurisdiction of the court).

As Taylor reports, "This Notice along with co-defendant Al Adask's "Man or other animals filing", see ((http://wordpress.com/tag/man-or-other-a...) , seems to have short-circuited the Plaintiff's intention to set another court hearing date for Motions for court ordered interrogatories and depositions under oath, as well as a restraining order to prevent my selling of colloidal silver (which they say is a drug because of customer testimonials) and silver generators (which they call a medical device).

"Also filed by us into evidence was a number of other things, including, but not limited to, The Organic Laws of The United States of America, The Common Law (specifically The Herbalist Charter), The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which limits the FDA's jurisdiction/authority to Washington, DC and the territories (supported by the 18th and 21st Amendments) except in the regulating (organizing for efficient flow) of interstate commerce (transportation across State lines -- there is no FDA authority to control the sale and manufacturing of anything that I can find.), the case of Lopez v. United States, Dun & Bradstreet documents showing that the Texas Courts and government 'agencies' are "corporations for profit", the United States Code 28 Sec. 3002 showing that the "United States" is a federal corporation (which is a fictitious rather than an organic entity- our God-given Rights are recognized only by the organic United States of America) and numerous other Supreme cases that establish that God-given Rights cannot be statutorily converted into privileges."

Has Taylor and health freedom triumphed over a system that is corrupt and unconstitutional? Time may tell otherwise, but so far the silence has been deafening. Many who have followed the case feel that the FDA and their state servants bit off much more than they realized when they decided to take on Taylor and Utopia Silver. Instead of finding a small company and a man they could steamroll and bully, they have instead been fought to a standstill by a man who is determined to carry this fight to the very end no matter what the personal cost.

More than one astute observer has pointed out that the powers that be may well be facing some very thorny issues that had not seen the light of day -- such as the FDA commissioning state officers, the constitutional limits on the true powers of the FDA and other such agencies' true constitutional powers, freedom of commercial speech, and the issue of whether God-given unalienable rights set out in the Declaration of Independence and secured by the Constitution trump the entire corporate "color of law" administrative system of courts and agencies which have been used to usurp our freedoms and liberties over the year.

Should the state and their FDA masters continue further actions, Taylor promises that not only will such issues be at the forefront of his case, but also that he and his co-defendants will then "go on the offensive by filing suit against key officials (in their individual capacities) who have conspired to violate our Constitutionally secured Rights. Public servants/government officials lose their "official immunity" if they overstep their authority as granted (and limited) by the Organic Laws of the USA.

Full article including notice sent to the court click here

MRSA Superbug Invades Public Schools as Conventional Medicine Ignores Natural Cures

NaturalNews.com

by Mike Adams

Schools in at least eight states have reported confirmed cases of students being infected with the "superbug" known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) following the death of a 17-year old Virginia student late last year, and the deaths of a New Hampshire preschooler and an 11-year-old from Mississippi a week earlier. MRSA, it seems, is taking hold in the U.S. population.

In addition to the cases in those states, schools in North Carolina, West Virginia and Connecticut have reported infections among their students, and a high school district in Tucson, Arizona sent a letter home to parents advising them that one student had been infected and another suspected case was awaiting confirmation. In Chicago, officials at Naperville High School did not become aware that there had been two cases of MRSA among football players there in the previous month until an athletic trainer learned of the incidents and reported them to the administration.

MRSA is a strain of the common bacterium that causes "staph" infections. While such infections are normally easy to treat with a variety of antibiotics, MRSA is resistant to these medications. MRSA is easily killed, of course, by natural medicines such as colloidal silver, aloe vera gel, garlic or any number of additional antibacterial medicines from Mother Nature, but doctors and hospitals don't use medicine from Mother Nature, so they suffer under the illusion that MRSA has "no cure" and can't be effectively treated. The limitations of antibiotic chemicals, it seems, have become the mental limitations of physicians, too.

What is MRSA?

MRSA was first identified in the United States in 1968. The staph bacteria, which occurs naturally on human skin and in nasal passages, can cause minor infections of the skin or other soft tissue if it enters an open wound. In rare cases, however, the bacteria becomes "invasive," colonizing another part of the body. In these cases, the staph bacteria can infect the bloodstream, urinary tract, lungs or other organs and lead to potentially fatal complications, including pneumonia or the state of whole-body inflammation known as sepsis. Even in less severe cases, a staph infection can lead to skin necrosis and the development of painful abscesses.

Staph infections can be spread by skin-to-skin contact or by sharing a towel with an infected person. This makes staph epidemics particularly likely in institutional settings like hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, sports facilities and schools. In schools, athletes are particularly at risk - the crowding and lack of hygiene in gyms and locker rooms provide a perfect breeding ground for MRSA.

"These situations set up the perfect scenario for the organism to invade the skin," said Dr. Pascal James Imperato, former commissioner of public health for New York City and chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. "In this setting, you have sweat and good exposure to skin. With youths who play football or lacrosse, the skin might also be cut or scraped, making the skin more vulnerable."

In response to the recent death of a student from MRSA, students in Bedford County, Virginia, demanded that their schools be sterilized. After students organized themselves over text messages and the internet to protest the unsanitary conditions at their schools - including taking the Bedford County Schools Superintendent on a tour of one high school to demonstrate the problem - the schools agreed to comply with their demands. All 21 schools in the county were closed, scrubbed and sanitized on October 17. Schools were also sanitized in Indiana and West Virginia, with a particular emphasis on locker rooms and gyms.

In Illinois, state officials are considering a recommendation that would specifically encourage health care officials to report any cluster of MRSA - defined as three or more cases - in an institutional setting. This rule is intended to alert health officials to any potential epidemics in the making, before the infection spreads too widely. The recommendation was prompted by the recognition that it took officials at Naperville High School weeks to learn about the two infections in their football team, and the fact that infections diagnosed at off-site health care facilities may never be reported to the school.

MRSA now killing more Americans than AIDS

Concern over MRSA infections has increased not only from the recent deaths of grade-school students, but also by a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report concluded that MRSA infection is far more common in the United States than previously thought, and that it kills more people yearly than AIDS, emphysema, Parkinson's disease or homicide.

The CDC calculated that deaths from MRSA in the United States may amount to nearly 19,000 people yearly, although the agency added that it can be hard to determine if death is caused directly by the disease or merely accelerated by it. The CDC estimated the infection rate at 32 per 100,000 people, making even the rate of invasive MRSA higher than the combined rate of other invasive bacterial conditions, including bloodstream infections, meningitis and flesh-eating strep.

While MRSA is still most common in hospital settings, it is becoming increasingly common outside the health-care world as well. "Now we know there's also a community-acquired strain of MRSA," Imperato said. "That doesn't mean that it hasn't always existed. It's just that now, we have become knowledgeable about it."

Imperato said that staying clean - whether that means health-care professionals washing hands or athletes showering immediately after exercise - is the best way to avoid spreading MRSA.

"Good old-fashioned cleanliness serves as the best barrier to these organisms," he said. "Just washing with ordinary soap and water is enough to remove any of the organisms that may have colonized in the skin."

Why conventional medicine is clueless to stop MRSA

Conventional medicine has not merely failed to stop MRSA, it has in fact accelerated the development of MRSA through rampant use of chemical antibiotics. This created the perfect environment in which MRSA superbugs could grow and escape outside the hospitals, into "the wild," as it's called by infectious disease experts.

Even worse, doctors and hospitals have so far refused to treat MRSA with anything that actually works. Instead of looking to Mother Nature, where cures for MRSA are as common as weeds (literally!), arrogant doctors and Western medical researchers continue to foolishly believe that only synthetic, patented chemical antibiotics have any use whatsoever, and that anything from nature couldn't possibly be of any help.

They also don't appear to show any interest whatsoever in the technology of colloidal silver, a substance that quickly kills not just MRSA, but ALL antibiotic-resistant infectious strains. A quick wipe-down of hospitals, schools and gyms with colloidal silver would halt these MRSA infections in their tracks. Colloidal silver can also be used topically, on MRSA skin infections, where it quickly kills bacteria without any negative side effects whatsoever. One source I recommend, by the way, is www.Silver100.com

Consider this for a moment: Every plant in the world grows its own antibacterial medicine. If it didn't, bacteria would eat it up within hours. This is especially true of the roots of plants, because roots have to survive the onslaught of soil bacteria (which are present in very high numbers unless the soil has been treated with chemical pesticides, of course). Roots, therefore, contain powerful antibacterial medicine.

Doctors don't like to admit Mother Nature has already developed this technology that continues to elude the "best and brightest minds" in modern medicine. What's at stake here, of course, is the ego and pride of the whole system of Western medicine. If doctors, hospitals and researchers have to admit that Mother Nature has already engineered thousands of different cures for MRSA, then it sort of makes doctors look stupid for a couple of reasons. One, it means that plants are better at making medicine than drug companies (which, of course, they are), and two, it means all the doctors who have been holding out for the next "wonder" drug while overlooking the simple, natural cures available in their back yard begin to look like irrational defenders of a nearly-useless system of pharmaceutical medicine (which, of course, they are as well).

So there's a mass delusion being played out by Western medicine today where doctors pretend natural medicine doesn't exist and thereby claim that MRSA has no cure. This is the fountain of stupidity from which our current MRSA problems have sprung. Instead of using what works, modern medical hacks are more interested in protecting their intellectual territory, thereby denying patients access to (or knowledge of) those things that could reduce suffering or even save their lives. And thus, the bewildered, fumbling "experts" of Western medicine continue the charade of looking for the next great antibiotic medicine that will finally conquer MRSA, even while cures for MRSA are so common that you can't take a walk in the woods or a city park without seeing hundreds or thousands of them. (Those trained in Western medicine are literally blind to nature.)

What they conveniently forget, of course, is the simple fact that clever MRSA bacteria will mutate a new resistance to the next billion dollar antibiotic medicine in about a day or so. And that means that all the self-proclaimed brilliance of Big Pharma's researchers and chemists can be outsmarted by a single-celled organism that doesn't even have half a brain.

Colloidal Silver Has Mainstream Medicine Singing the Blues

NaturalNews.com
Originally published February 27, 2008

by Tony Isaacs

(NaturalNews) The recent widespread mainstream media coverage of the "blue man" Paul Karason and his rare skin condition known as Argyria is the latest in a series of largely misleading and sensationalized scare stories about the dangers of colloidal silver turning a person's skin blue.

Although this latest story did not appear to originate from mainstream medicine or the FDA, there is little doubt that they have welcomed it with open arms and have been quick to trot out "medical experts" and past FDA warnings to help "sing the blues" about colloidal silver. The truth is that mainstream medicine has a very good reason to cry long and loud about colloidal silver, because it does represent a very real danger – a danger to the huge profits of the pharmaceutical industry's patented antibiotics.

The truth is that silver has been used effectively by mankind to fight germs and ailments for thousands of years, and the instances of modern use of colloidal silver turning people's skin blue are so rare as to be almost non-existent - and unlike thousands of prescribed and approved over-the-counter mainstream medications including the common aspirin, silver has never killed anyone. As a matter of fact, almost all of the relative handful of reported instances have involved one or more of the following: older silver products that contained as much as 10% or more silver (compared to mere parts per million in modern colloidal silver), silver nitrate, home made colloidal silver that was contaminated with salt, and silver that has been consumed continuously in very large quantities over a very long period of time.

In the case of Karason, he made his own ionic silver at home for almost two decades and for many years consumed a quart or more per day. I daresay that any prescribed or over-the-counter medication whose recommended dosage was a couple of teaspoons a day would do far worse than turn a person blue if they drank a quart or more of it a year! For the sake of comparison, drinking a quart or more per day of colloidal silver would be like a person taking several bottles of aspirin a day, a practice that would be lethal in short order. Karason actually appears to enjoy his notoriety as the Papa Smurf blue man, and even though he sings the praises of how colloidal silver saved his life and the many ailments he believes it cured, the focus of attention is on his blue skin - a condition that is actually reversible with proper diet and herbal cleanses despite mainstream claims to the contrary.

What is also true about colloidal silver is that it is far safer, more effective and less expensive than the marginally effective and side effect laden mainstream antibiotics - and has mainstream and university studies proving it dating back to the early 1900's. The best and strongest of the FDA approved antibiotics are effective for a handful of bacteria at best, whereas colloidal silver is supremely effective against just about every kind of single celled pathogen, including bacteria, fungal growths and viruses (which antibiotics are often wrongly prescribed for, despite the fact that antibiotics have no effect on viruses).

If the public were told the truth, a rarity when it comes to mainstream drugs versus natural competition, colloidal silver would represent a huge threat to literally billions of dollars of profits and so it is no wonder that mainstream medicine and their allies in the mainstream media are once again loudly singing the blues - just as they have repeatedly done in the past with misleading stories and studies about a great many popular natural plants, supplements, vitamins and minerals that represent threats to mainstream drug profits because they are safer, more effective and less expensive alternatives to the unnatural, side effect laden, hugely expensive and marginally effective synthetics created in the labs of the powerful world pharmaceutical empire.

While there are a great many natural threats to mainstream profits, whose use and track records of safety and effectiveness date back hundreds and even thousands of years, perhaps no natural alternative to mainstream drugs represents as big of a threat to industry profits as colloidal silver, and it is no coincidence that colloidal silver has been placed at the very top of the FDA/mainstream medicine hit list.

However, when it comes to warning and scaring people away from silver, both the mainstream medical industry and the FDA have serious credibility problems. First of all, silver has a history of safe and effective use dating back thousands of years. In addition, it continues to be widely used today, including being used by NASA, the US military and Potters for Peace for water purification, being used as a germicidal agent by hospitals and medical suppliers and was recently incorporated into a new line of hospital pajamas to prevent the spread of infection, to name just a few of its present day uses.

The biggest credibility problem of all for mainstream medicine and the FDA regarding silver is likely how they both approved and embraced silver for medicinal use at one time - yet now would have us believe that silver is both ineffective and dangerous. At one time silver products were very much in favor with both mainstream medicine and the FDA. No fewer than 34 different prescribed over-the-counter medications containing silver were not only widely sold by industry, they were also approved by the very same FDA which now seeks to warn us of its dangers and have us believe it is ineffective.

What changed their minds? Perhaps the obvious answer can be found in the fact that silver fell out of favor at the very same time that patented sulfa drugs and patented antibiotics created in drug company labs came on the market. Once that happened, the non-patentable silver was no longer a tool for healing, but a threat to profits.

Zealous protection of mainstream approved drugs and suppression of natural competition is nothing new -look at the estimated 100,000 or more deaths caused by Vioxx before the FDA finally removed it from the market. Look at the ridiculous actions of the FDA when it threatened Washington cherry growers for telling the truth about the health benefits of eating cherries, or at the storm trooper actions against the makers of Charantia (bitter melon) tea in Florida who dared put references to some of the 650 plus PubMed studies and citations about bitter melon on their website.

The FDA persecutions and prosecutions of cherry farmers, bitter melon, and a long line of other natural alternatives points out just how extreme the protection of the big drug companies' products and profits really is. Consider this: other than issues of national security, only in natural health is it a crime to tell the truth due to the way the FDA has construed their rules and definitions to protect industry. For example, if a company were to advertise that vitamin C was a cure for scurvy, as everyone knows is true, that company could be prosecuted for selling unapproved drugs. The same would be true if a company printed a testimonial from someone who reported health benefits due to vitamin C, or any other vitamin, mineral, supplement or non FDA approved drug.

For example, only the makers of FDA approved drugs can use the word cure, or even imply any health benefits without the FDA considering the product a drug. The catch is that in order to be FDA approved, no matter how many PubMed cited studies or other studies have been performed, and no matter how much of a history of hundreds or thousands of years and users, the FDA only approves drugs that go through its specific approval process – one that costs hundreds of billions of dollars.

When it comes to natural alternatives, spending such money on a natural product is prohibitive, since it could not be patented and could be freely and cheaply sold by any number of competitors and it would be virtually impossible to ever recover all the costs of getting the natural product approved. Though the process is purported to be one which protects the public from unsafe medicines (and we see how well that worked for the hall of shame list of drugs like Vioxx, Avandia, etc.), the net effect of the FDA's drug definitions and approval process is to exclude natural competition and insure that only the patentable and profitable synthetics created in drug company labs can be approved and marketed as having health benefits.

The most recent example of such one-sided treatment favoring industry came in the following news story earlier this past week about a lawsuit filed against the FDA by Public Citizen after the FDA ignored years of complaints about the dangers of ruptured tendons caused by one of the drug industry's most powerful and profitable antibiotics:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite long-standing evidence that fluoroquinolone antibiotics can cause tendon ruptures, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to increase its warnings to patients and physicians about the dangers of the medicines, Public Citizen told a federal court Thursday.

Public Citizen sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to force the FDA to act upon a petition the consumer group filed with the agency 16 months ago. The FDA has failed to respond to the petition, which asked the agency to put a "black box" warning on fluoroquinolone antibiotics (such as Cipro, Levaquin and others) to make doctors and patients more aware of the risk of serious tendon injury before tendons actually rupture.

The petition also urged the FDA to send a warning letter to physicians, as well as require an FDA-approved medication guide to be dispensed when prescriptions are filled. Public Citizen contends that the FDA is violating the Administrative Procedure Act by not acting upon the petition.

Stronger warnings could lead to earlier intervention and prevent needless injuries by allowing doctors to switch patients to other antibiotics, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group.

"While the FDA sits idly by and ignores the problem, more people will suffer serious tendon ruptures that could have been prevented," Wolfe said. "The current warning is buried in a long list of possible adverse reactions and is far too easy to miss."

From November 1997 through December 2005, the FDA received 262 reports of tendon ruptures, mainly of the Achilles tendon, 258 cases of tendinitis and 274 cases of other tendon disorders in patients using fluoroquinolone antibiotics. An additional 74 tendon ruptures have subsequently been reported to the FDA for a total of 336. Because only a small fraction of cases are typically reported to the FDA, the actual number of ruptures and other tendon injuries attributable to the antibiotic is much higher (Source: Healthy News).

One can only imagine the FDA's reaction if 336 tendon ruptures had been reported for those who take the best antibiotic and pathogen destroyer on the planet - colloidal silver. No doubt, they would have raided the manufacturer with storm troopers and shut it down years ago, just as they have done many times with the manufacturers and sellers of other natural competitors to drug company products.

In conclusion, as far as I can tell, not one single instance of Argyria has been attributed to properly made colloidal that was not consumed in amounts that were up to hundreds of times the recommended dosage, that has not stopped the FDA from continuing to "sing the blues" about silver or from going after those who make and sell colloidal silver products, not because silver represents a whit of threat to human health but rather because it represents a threat to the inflated bottom line profits of the mainstream drug manufacturers.

Finding out who the FDA really serves is a simple task - all you have to do is follow the money. But don't simply take my word, let a noted past FDA commissioner tell you very clearly what the FDA is really about:

"The FDA 'protects' the big drug companies and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government's police powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. People think that the FDA is protecting them.

It isn't.

What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day."

Dr. Herbert Ley
Former U.S. FDA Commissioner


About the Author:

Tony Isaacs, is a natural health advocate and researcher and the author of books and articles about natural health including "Cancer's Natural Enemy" as well as song lyrics and humorous anecdotal stories. Mr. Isaacs also has The Best Years in Life website for baby boomers and others wishing to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. He is currently residing in the scenic Texas hill country near Utopia, Texas where he is working on a major book project due for publication next year.

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