Is Yet Another Kind of Superbug In Our Future?
Wait. Aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes?
Well, apparently our failed love affair with antibiotics hasn’t taught us a darn thing, because it looks as if we’re once again setting ourselves up for a superbug catastrophe…not to mention a potential environmental disaster to boot.
A paper published just last month in the American Chemical Society’s journal Langmuir announced that scientists have developed a “killer paper” coated with silver nanoparticles (SNPs) that they say will help preserve foods by fighting the bacteria that cause it to spoil.
Frankly, I don’t share the scientists’ apparent glee over this “breakthrough”—and I’ll tell you why.
We’ve known for a long time now that ionized silver has antimicrobial and antifungal properties. It turns out that when you shrink it down to between 1 nanometer and 100 nanometers in size (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter…smaller than many viruses) it apparently becomes even more effective at killing microbes.
It’s for this reason that it‘s used in a variety of optical and medical applications. And if its use were confined to such limited types of applications we might not have a problem.
But, of course, it isn’t.
Silver nanoparticles have been quietly added to an increasing number of consumer products, including, for example, odor-eating underwear, microbe-proof teddy bears, and bacteria-resistant household appliances.
Sure, at first it sounds like a wonderful idea.
Get dressed in your SNP-duds in the morning and be protected all day from getting the flu. Or use an SNP-coated kitchen appliance and hope that the nasty E-coli bug that hitched a ride in on the chicken you brought home for dinner will be history.
But, as they say, when something sounds too good to be true it usually is, and I’m afraid our blooming infatuation with SNPs fits the bill.
You see, just as the overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products has spawned antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA and C. diff, the overuse of silver nanoparticles may very well do the same. I shudder to think what deadly bacterium may lurk in our future if we start lining everything from our socks to our food packages with the stuff.
And, of course, we mustn’t forget that should we continue down this path all the food packaging, old clothing, and appliances that we add to our landfills every year will eventually be leeching SNPs into our soil and waterways. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen!
In fact, a team at Duke University has already demonstrated that silver nanoparticles can have a negative impact on plant life and growth. Who knows what the impact of the SNPs will be on fish and other aquatic life!
You know, it’s said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It looks as if with our blossoming use of SNPs we’re heading down the road toward madness, and it’s time we put on the brakes before it’s too late.
Personally, I think that the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
References:
"Sonochemical Coating of Paper by Microbiocidal Silver Nanoparticles," Langmuir, 2011, 27 (2), pp 720–726, DOI: 10.1021/la103401z
“Nanomaterials in the environment: The effect of realistic silver nanoparticle exposures on terrestrial ecosystem dynamics,” Ecological Society of America, talk led by Benjamin Colman, Duke University, August 4, 2010
"Silver Beware: Antimicrobial Nanoparticles in Soil May Harm Plant Life," Scientific American, August 9,2010
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An enthusiastic believer in the power of natural healing, Alice has spent virtually her entire 17-year career in the natural-health publishing field helping to spread the word.
She is an advocate of self-education and is passionate about the power of group knowledge sharing, like the kind found right here on HealthierTalk.com. Alice loves to share her views on holistic and natural healing as well as her, sometimes contentious, thoughts on the profit-driven inner workings of traditional medicine.
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Comments
Anonymous
There are powerful stuff in nature powerful enough to preserve, instead we go with this nano blah and nano bleh, all these chemicals and additives in our food and water supply, the results are negative to our bodies which are designed to run with all natural forms, not synthetic, and if we overload we will experience a negative impact, I do not know who is fooling who, but these foolish people must be getting governmental back up, then the population will suffer the consequences, as usual. JAM
Lori
Now they're also looking at adding nanoparticles to food to enhance flavor etc. They would actually attach to the taste receptors on the tongue. So a food lower in sugar might taste sweeter. Terrific, since our brains respond to flavors... Okay, so these tiny guys would not necessarily be listed as an ingredient on a label, so how would we know? Talk about food terrorism!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-...
tbass
Alice, I really enjoy your articles. Here comes the "but".
I don't agree that nano -silver particles produces super bugs.
NanoSilver's method of disabling bacteria (AND viruses) is as below per Peter Lindeman, D. SC.:
"Colloidal silver appears to be a powerful, natural antibiotic and preventative against infections. Acting as a catalyst, it reportedly disables the enzyme that one-celled bacteria, viruses and fungi need for their oxygen metabolism. They suffocate without corresponding harm occurring to human enzymes or parts of the human body chemistry. The result is the destruction of disease-causing organisms in the body and in the food."
Prettu neat, and a LOT safer then the chemicals in antibiotics..!!
Tom Bassett
Alice Wessendorf
Hi tbass,
Thanks so much for your comment! I love hearing all sides of an issue. And to be honest, I certainly hope you're right about the nano superbugs and that I'm off base on this prediction. Only time will tell I suppose.
However, we do already have one study showing that the tiny sized silver particles can have a negative impact on plant life. And considering how the defense mechanism of bacteria works I do still fear that this introduction of nanosilver into everything from gym socks to countertops is going to end badly.
Just to clarify, in this article I actually was not referring to traditional colloidal silver products, which have been used safely and very effectively since the late 1800's. It's the widespread introduction of these particles on a massive scale that I see a potential problem with.
If antibiotics were used sparingly and as intended we wouldn't have the antibiotic-resistant superbugs we have today (see Norway for example where the antibiotics are so cautiously used that even good old plain penicillin is still effective.) Once we have nanosilver coating the inside of all of our food packaging, our clothing, and our appliances it seems inevitable that the bacteria will mutate to compensate. It's this same mentality of "if a little is good than a lot must be better" that has gotten us into trouble in the past.
On a side note I also find it interesting that the use of colloidal silver has always been treated as more than a little "out there" by the mainstream, but now that they've found a major cash-producing use for it it's been given a spiffy new 21'st Century name and it's now the darling of the moment.
Again, thanks so much for sharing your side of the story!
Helen
Look at the harm the GMO foods are causing. If people ate organic they just might be better off
Anonymous
Heard and learn so much of alternate healing, but it is all using external drug to "kill". Can we all think about way to strengthen our internal body system like immunity to defend our own body without drug. Personally, I think we have depend on external help for too long and has forgot our most powerful system we have. The less we use out own body system, the weaker our body going to be. We have a lot wrong habit that affect our body system such as Fast Food, Fast growth pdt (GM PDT), Comfort lifestyle eg. refuse to talk a walk and replace by Car, automatic lift etc.. Think about it, a long of illness do not even appear in the ancient days, why Now. Today definition of Comfort lifestyle make us sick.
Vi S.
I agree with tbass. There was a time before stainless steel flatware when households used silverware and was exposed to the benefits of silver on a daily basis. I've heard of putting a silver coin in milk to keep it from souring before all the other methods came into being. Colloidal silver has been on spacecraft for water purification. I can't make any claims pro or con as yet but I've been experimenting with colloidal silver in treating coleus plants infected with powdery mildew. There has been some success but it isn't predictable.
StoptheMadness
Vi S...you make some good points, but I think you may be missing the point of this article. The author is not talking about regular silver like that used in silverware or even typical colloidal silver. This is silver that has been broken down into itty bitty teeny tiny particles (for lack of a better word)...NANO sized particles....so small it is even smaller than a virus. And now they are coating everything from socks to food packaging with this stuff. Leaving it like a time bomb ready to start wreaking havoc with our bodies and our environment.
Think about it for a moment...doesn't this sound eerily like say BPA coated food cans and register receipts? Or perhaps "don't worry it's good for your teeth we'll just dump it into your water" fluoride? Or "gee aren't these bug killing drugs fabulous I think I'll dose up my entire herd of cattle on them" antibiotics.
This, just like those other things are NOT natural and just like them one day after the damage is already done we'll be sitting in reactionary mode saying please stop poisoning us and fighting with big business and our own government to try to get them to stop the madness.
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