Mild Silver Protein

With every subscription renewal form I send a questionnaire asking what folks would like to see in The Moneychanger. One gentleman wrote, “Write something about colloidal silver. It saved my life!” Well, I’ve used it myself, and so has my whole family, with great results. So I was gunning for a chance to write about it when I found out about Bill McFarland and mild silver protein.

Bill McFarland grew up in Palestine, Texas. After graduating from high school in 1969, he went to the University of Texas at Austin where he studied petroleum engineering and graduated with a double major in business. Working for Gulf Oil’s environmental section he dealt with state & federal governments, and then went to work for independent oil companies. He several businesses in Belize & Central America. In the 1970s he got involved with vitamins & nutritional support. He became acquainted with various forms of silver products in 1994. In 1995 he began to put together groups in the United States and abroad to research Mild Silver Protein (MSP). They began with one form of MSP but have kept on perfecting it and enhancing its ability to kill viruses, bacteria, and funguses. The mild silver protein was made in 1891, as reflected by the Merck manuals of that time. In the early 1960s it fell into disuse thanks to antibiotics and new drugs promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. You can visit Mr. McFarland’s website at www.silverprotein.com. MSP Research & Treatment Foundation, Route 3, Box 109, Opp, Alabama 36467; (800) 339-5060. Mr. McFarland kindly made time for this interview on August 21, 2001. Jut to keep things on the up and up, Bill also kindly sent me samples of his products to try, including some MSP solution to try on our mastitis plagued milch cow. We also used MSP mixed with DMSO and MSM powder to spray on cuts, sores, and blisters on our horses. The result there was very speedy healing with no complications.

PUBLISHER’S WARNING & DISCLAIMER: By publishing this material, neither The Moneychanger nor Mr. McFarland recommends nor endorses any specific treatment or therapy for any physical condition or disease. This interview is offered for information & research purposes only, & the reader should receive it as such. Neither The Moneychanger nor Mr. McFarland guarantees or warrants any results from any treatment or substance discussed. Neither The Moneychanger nor Mr. McFarland assumes any express or implied liability for any use to which this information is put.

MONEYCHANGER If MSP has been in the Merck manual since 1892 then it’s not patentable, is it?

MONEYCHANGER That obviously would effect whether drug companies wanted to manufacture and promote it?

McFARLAND Drug companies would not want to make it because the competition would be everywhere so the profit margin would be tiny. Anyone who wanted to manufacture the original MSP could if he had the means.

MONEYCHANGER Sulfa drugs and penicillin came on a little before World War II, and then really skyrocketed. Until they came along, silver was the most effective antibiotic agent know, wasn’t it?

McFARLAND In fact it was the drug of choice in hospital settings and doctor’s clinics all over the world, but the patient was not given the product to take home with him. He actually had to go to the doctor’s office or to the hospital every day for a dose of silver.

McFARLAND Yes. It was widely used in Germany in surgery. Surgeons actually sprayed it onto open cuts and wounds during surgery. They used it both to keep infections from intruding into the wound, and to suppress infectious agents that might come out of a cyst or boil. After the turn of the century that use spread to the US and other countries.

MONEYCHANGER Silver itself has no caustic effect on the body? What about other side effects?

McFARLAND Some forms of silver do have side effects, for example, silver nitrate and silver nitrite. However, mild silver protein is not made with the same ingredients nor does it harm the body. The mild silver protein that we manufacture at MSP Research is non-toxic. In our Lyme disease clinical trial some people have consumed over 200 four-ounce bottles of MSP at four hundred parts per million (ppm) in 18 months. After numerous blood tests, urinalysis, and hair analysis, they don’t show any accumulation of nitrates or nitrites or other toxic build-up.

MONEYCHANGER The bloody shirt that some people raise about using silver as an antibiotic agent is argyria, also called silver poisoning. Really “poisoning” is a misnomer because it doesn’t really poison anybody. They don’t lie down on the dirt and die; they just turn blue.

McFARLAND That is correct, and the bluish tinge is permanent. However, you can remove it with EDTA chelation. No individual who has taken part in any of my studies and trials, or has consumed large quantities of the product has developed argyria. We know of one doctor who has treated one patient with argyria. He got that from consuming his own home made colloidal silver preparations for a couple of years. He had Lyme disease and he was drinking several quarts of home made colloidal silver weekly. Over a two-year period his skin did turn ashen grey. He also had toxins in his system which the doctor believed came from impurities in the silver rods he was using. With just a few chelation sessions the greyish discoloration disappeared. By the way, right after that the patient entered my clinical studies involving Lyme disease. After taking 15 bottles of MSP orally and seven IV infusions, he is now asymptomatic and has returned to running 10K races in Pensacola, Florida.

MONEYCHANGER What about these little home silver colloid generators? It’s just a pair of alligator clips that you can buy from Radio Shack and three nine-volt batteries. You clip onto two pure silver coins or rods, suspend them in distilled water, and then hook them up to the batteries. That makes colloidal silver solution. What’s wrong with that?

McFARLAND First off, it’s mostly an ionic solution with very little colloidal silver. It’s not stable because it won’t stay in suspension. A true colloid will stay in suspension indefinitely.

MONEYCHANGER And a true colloid contains the elemental form of silver, not some ionic form?

McFARLAND Right. The particle size is also very large, microns as it’s being made. As soon as you turn the electricity off, (whether you use a 110 volt or 9-volt DC source) your particles start clumping together because they attract each other. The particles then become much larger than micron size. . You can actually see the particles accumulating, like grains of sand, in the bottom of the jar as soon as you turn the electricity off. That has to be consumed immediately for any benefit whatsoever. There’s no way to stabilise the product, and its strength is three to five parts per million. That’s quite a bit lower than the product I make at 400 parts per million.

McFARLAND According to all the biochemists that we have ever worked with, the ideal particle size for absorption into body tissue is between one and 100 nanometers. The micron size created by the colloidal generators is several thousand times larger than that.[2]

MONEYCHANGER Then these little generators produce something ionic rather than elemental, i.e., not truly a colloidal suspension. Second, what colloid there is consists of a very large particle size.

McFARLAND Right, and that is very difficult for the body to use, although some people have succeeded in treating sore throats and minor ailments with it. The product that I have developed was not intended necessarily for colds and sore throats, although it’s very effective for those. We tried to perfect something that could be used for life threatening situations or very serious illnesses like HIV, AIDS, Lyme disease, Hepatitis A, B, & C.

MONEYCHANGER In other words, diseases that do not respond to the available antibiotics.

McFARLAND Yes. In fact, most of these diseases in advanced stages do not respond at all to any of the known pharmaceuticals available today.

MONEYCHANGER I’d like to point out that using silver in medicine is not some goofy alternative that just popped up last week.

MONEYCHANGER Today physicians use silver by itself or with mild electric current to heal persistence bone infections, for example, and many other uses in medicine. It’s used also in water purification, where you’re relying on that same anti-biotic effect of silver to purify water. By the way, that silver trick has been used since the most ancient times. On their ships the Greeks used to carry silver vessels for water. Colonial Americans would put a silver coin in a cask of coin to keep it fresh.

MONEYCHANGER The point here is that the migration of elemental silver off a coin into water would be tiny, an incredibly small amount. Yet from the most ancient times people have noticed this antibiotic effect of silver. Not only that, but also the presence of silver seems to promote healing, not just kill pathogens. And I haven’t even mentioned Silvadene® (a sulfa drug containing elemental silver), which has a great success story treating burns.

McFARLAND We are seeing acceptance of MSP grow among mainstream doctors. We already sell to a lot of naturopaths, chiropractors, dentists, and veterinarians. We have customers with dog kennels and vets who’ve found the product effective in treating parvo and babiosis and controlling e. coli. Vets are putting it in water for dogs and cats and goats and horses and cows. I’ve treated goats and cows with mastitis and other infections.

But mild silver protein is not a miracle cure all, and with many diseases it also acts slowly. People expect to get immediate results, and they want it cherry flavoured. Well, I can’t do that.

MONEYCHANGER The real attraction of mild silver protein comes from emerging strains of super-bugs resistant to antibiotics. We’ve reached a stage where the use (or rather, overuse) of antibiotics has caused a severe problem: antibiotics have actually helped breed stronger strains of pathogens. One dose of the antibiotic kills off a lot of them, but the ones it doesn’t kill may develop a resistance to that antibiotic. When they reproduce you’ve created a super bug.

McFARLAND Another problem created by antibiotics is systemic candida infections. That’s an overgrowth of the yeast that normally lives in the small intestine. With the overuse of antibiotics it migrates out into the stomach, goes through the stomach wall, into the bloodstream and out into the entire body. Whenever you feed it sugar, drink cokes, eat Ding-Dongs, bread or any other carbohydrates that converts to sugar in your stomach, you’re feeding the yeast and it grows and grows.

MONEYCHANGER The candida infection most people know is the vaginal yeast infection.

McFARLAND That’s how it usually appears in females at first, but once it goes systemic they have sore throats, ear infections, thrush on the tongue, low energy levels, and many become unable to work. The end result is that the victim becomes housebound. Then they become susceptible to other diseases—MS, lupus, Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr, and other infections that basically incapacitate them. Sometimes doctors send them to a psychiatrist because they can find no physical reason for their illness. That’s when they turn to alternative health practitioners. Mild silver protein may offer those people hope.

McFARLAND And it doesn’t do it immediately. Often other supplements are necessary.

MONEYCHANGER Since silver apparently kills mechanically, organisms can’t become resistant to it, any more than a fly can build up a resistance to a properly applied fly swatter.

McFARLAND In studies conducted by the University of Florida or Vitamin Research Products We have not found any bacteria, virus, or fungus that was resistant to our Silver 400. We also supply MSP under private label to some large supplement companies, and none of them has reported any resistant organism.

McFARLAND I have used this product on myself. I have consumed as much as 8 or 9 ounces at one time with no side effect whatsoever. I’ve taken an IV with 4 ounces of 400 ppm MSP with no side effect except a mild headache for a few minutes.

McFARLAND We first did clinical trials with HIV. We worked with seven patients in Mexico and the US. Those were pared down to three cases which were reported in the ACAM journal in April 2001. Before that a small article appeared in the 1/2001 Townsend Newsletter for Doctors & Patients. About two weeks ago the Florida Chiropractic Association’s feature article focussed on our MSP.

MONEYCHANGER I notice that all the people and places that you mention stand outside the popular medical establishment. ACAM – American College for the Advancement of Medicine – is largely composed of physicians who do chelation therapy, which most of the profession ignorantly disdains. In Mexico there’s a lot more openness for all kinds of medical practice. And chiropractors aren’t exactly welcomed by the medical establishment.

McFARLAND The original study was done with seven individuals. The published literature deals with only three individuals.

McFARLAND One individual began confined to bed, unable to walk. Before the treatments his viral load was over 750,000, the detectable limits of all testing in this country. He had full-blown AIDS as well as other viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. After 60 days’ on MSP his viral load dropped to around 400. That’s at the bottom limit of detectability.

McFARLAND Yes, but first he took MSP orally for several weeks to help lower the viral load and to kill off candida yeast overgrowth as well as other infections. We did that to minimise the effects of a Herksheimer reaction, a massive die-off of pathogens. We didn’t want to harm these people, and since this was the first time that MSP in its present form had been given intravenously we wanted to be very cautious. Several doctors are administering MSP intravenously in this country and abroad. They give at least 30 days oral treatment with MSP while trying to boost the immune system, change diet, and reduce the incidence of candida. In all cases, whether HIV, Hepatitis A, B, or C, we are seeing candida yeast overgrowth. That’s due partly to overuse of antibiotics and partly to poor diet. As the immune system goes downhill then they become susceptible to a long list of other diseases.

McFARLAND We aren’t sure. It appears that no virus or bacterium that we’ve come into contact with can resist silver. The silver is bound by a protein molecule and enters the bloodstream throughout the body. It’s absorbed deep into the body. The host or the virus, bacteria, or fungus seem to be attracted by the food-grade protein molecule. We believe the protein molecule is either eaten off and or is attracted to the pathogen, and the silver then either suffocates or shuts down the pathogen.

The Herksheimer reaction starts between one and eight hours after an IV infusion. Orally it’s the same result. If an individual with a systemic infection takes MSP, sometimes as little as a quarter of a teaspoon, he may get a mild Herksheimer reaction from a very quick die-off of pathogens. We know that it works very quickly and doesn’t stay in the body very long. We’ve done extensive hair analysis as well as urinalysis on people who’ve consumed several hundred bottles of MSP and they haven’t accumulated any nitrates or nitrites. So we feel the silver dissipates within just a matter of hours or certainly days. Some doctors are giving as many as three IVs a week.

MONEYCHANGER It’s hard for me to understand that a mixture as weak as 400 parts per million could have much effect. That’s four ten-thousandths, or .04%. That’s moving in the direction of homeopathic strength. It doesn’t appear to be very strong, yet you’re saying that the clinical results show that even in that strength it massively kills off pathogens.

McFARLAND It suffices. We used a 1500 ppm drip on one individual. His vital signs were lowered substantially. We felt like the 400 ppm would work better across the board as a supplement that would not hurt anyone, but would certainly be effective both IV and orally.

MONEYCHANGER A healthy human being normally has a large population of friendly bacteria in his gut, things like acidophilus. If I swig down MSP won’t it kill off all these normal flora, too?

McFARLAND It does not appear to kill all the friendly bacteria, and we don’t know why. Over long term use we advise to supplement with some sort of probiotic (acidophilis supplements). However, one man in Oklahoma with Lyme disease in Oklahoma took over 200 bottles accompanied by very little in the way of probiotics. He still didn’t have chronic diarrhoea, as one would expect if he had killed off all his friendly flora. But by combining MSP with a change of diet, he did get his candida under control.

MONEYCHANGER So the mild silver protein might -- and I stress the word might because you don’t have a whole lot of proof on your side yet, the kind of proof that the so-called scientific community would accept . . .

McFARLAND You mean a $20 million double blind study. When I approached MSP in the 1990s I decided that I would be working with people who had life-threatening illnesses but I did not do a double blind study. We took individuals who were truly sick and we worked with them to see if MSP could help. Since then we have enhanced those products and tried to make them more bio-available. We are continuing to do research as money permits, to keep on improving the product.

MONEYCHANGER But generally that will be people who have given up hope on established medical procedures. People with AIDS, for instance, or Lyme disease – diseases that the medical establishment finds very difficult to treat.

McFARLAND Correct. We have a small study going on now in Tijuana that involves mycoplasmas. That is also a disease that the traditional medical establishment finds hard to treat successfully. We hope to start a clinical study in Mexico city with Chagas disease, a parasitic disease vectored through mosquitoes. It kills small children. Like Lyme disease or HIV, it weakens the body’s immune system. The two drugs used on Chagas disease have proven ineffective, and it seems that the pathogen has mutated.

MONEYCHANGER Where do you plan to take MSP from here? You have another clinical trial scheduled?

McFARLAND Vitamin Research Products (VRP) is going to take MSP and use it in South Africa for a 300 person clinical study against HIV. The spin-off of that is that people who are HIV positive or have full-blown AIDS have a multitude of other diseases also, and we’ll be able to see how MSP affects those.

McFARLAND We sell under our own label and private label for Vitamin Research Products. We manufacture seven silver products: Silver 400, a four ounce bottle of 400 ppm mild silver protein solution; two silver eye-drop solutions; a topical product, effective in gum disease and herpes and fungal skin infections. We also make a nasal spray and a burn mist.

MONEYCHANGER Yes, the 4 ounce bottle of MSP costs between $40 and $50 at retail. Ag-Ocular is $20 per bottle, the Ag-Optic is $15; the Ag-Sol (the topical MSP plus other ingredients) is $50, the nasal spray is $14, and the burn mist is $12.

McFARLAND I wholesale to over 500 health care professionals in this country, and I sell at retail, too.

MONEYCHANGER You don’t make any claims for the efficacy of mild silver protein?

McFARLAND We cannot make any claims. We do have a silver manual to explain how to use the products and we do have extensive anecdotal reports from doctors that we provide to the medical community. And I do seminars.

[1] To greatly oversimplify, a colloid is a is ‘a substance in a particularly fine state of subdivision, much larger than atomic or simple molecular dimensions, but much smaller than particles visible to the unaided eye.” (Encyclopedia Brittanica). A colloidal suspension contains a colloid in some medium, and can be a gas, liquid, or solid. Examples include smoke, mist, milk, butter, mayonnaise, cheese, dough, paint, and concrete. A colloid usually does not easily settle out of the suspension, i.e., unspoiled milk usually doesn’t separate into water and butterfat. A colloidal suspension is not a solution, because it contains substances which are not broken down into their atomic or molecular parts. A colloid of silver, for example, contains elemental silver particles in some medium. A solution, on the other hand, contains the dissociated atomic or molecular parts. For instance, a solution of silver chloride contains molecules of the salt, silver chloride, dissociated into its component ions, anions (positively charged ions) of silver and cations (negatively charged ions) of chlorine. For a very rough idea of the difference between a colloidal suspension and a chemical solution, think of throwing sand into unset jello versus throwing salt into water. -- FS

[2] One micron is one-millionth of a meter. One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. One angstrom is one-ten billionth of a meter. The word “micron” in physical chemistry also refers to any particle with a diameter between .01 and .0001 millimeter