After multiple experiments and hours of recording data, we have decided that Colloidal Silver isn’t exactly what the websites claim it to be. The claims that have been made in favor of Colloidal Silver are that it has the ability to kill virtually anything. Colloidal Silver does in fact kill bacteria, but not to the extent that the website claims.  We tested the Colloidal Silver against three other antibiotics; Kanamycin, Streptomycin, and Ampicillin.  Our data consistently showed that Kanamycin was the most effective against the bacteria C600, by killing more colonies of bacteria than Streptomycin, Kanamycin, and Colloidal Silver.  The next most powerful antibiotic was Ampicillin and then Streptomycin.  They both showed the ability to kill colonies of bacteria in large quantities.  The Colloidal Silver did decrease the number of bacteria growing on the agar plates, but did not show the results proving that it killed all bacteria. 

There was, however, an inconsistency that arose in the experiments. The inconsistency came about when there was a ring of no growth, indicating the effectiveness of the antibiotic, however there were a few small colonies where the antibiotic supposedly had no effect. In all of the experiments, colloidal silver only had a small ring around a slightly circular area. Inside the ring of no growth was a cloudy circle.

The first experiment, in which the fruit flies ate food with Colloidal Silver in it, showed that the Colloidal Silver did reduce the number of bacteria in the flies compared to the regular flies.  However when we conducted the experiment a week later with a different batch of flies, our results were much different.  Instead of having a lower bacteria count, the Colloidal Silver had a higher bacteria count than the untreated flies.  These discrepancies create an even stronger argument that the Colloidal Silver isn’t as great as the website makes it out to be. There is though the possibility that the food may have been contaminated in the “untreated flies” with an antibiotic known to kill bacteria.

Colloidal Silver also claims that it is non-toxic.  We tested this claim by observing how many flies died by eating Colloidal Silver food.  Our first results showed that there was a very small difference between the Colloidal Silver flies and the non -treated flies.  However the second experiment was much more disturbing.  We started out with 20 flies in each vial, one with Colloidal Silver food, the other with just plain watered food.  In the regular food vial, only six flies died.  In the Colloidal Silver vial, an astonishing thirteen flies died.  Not toxic?

One of the testimonials on the website, is written by a daughter whose mother is very sick.  They tried all different kinds of antibiotics and they proved to be unsuccessful as well as costly.  They tried Colloidal Silver and then sang the praises of all the success that they had had with it.  It seems highly unlikely that Colloidal Silver could have had such a large effect on bacterial infections in the case of the mother and daughter, but seemed to fall short of miraculous results in the lab. 

The main purpose of Colloidal Silver is to kill bacteria in the body that is not supposed to be there.  Many scientists wonder how Colloidal Silver is able to differentiate between good bacteria from harmful bacteria.  On the Colloidal Silver Discovery website (www.colloidal-silver.com), doctors claim that Colloidal Silver doesn’t directly kill the bacteria.  The good bacteria are aerobic while the harmful bacteria are anaerobic.  The Colloidal Silver uses enzymes to break down certain elements that the anaerobic bacteria as well as yeast, mold and viruses need to survive.