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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,677 published reviews in this topic

PolitiFactHealth & medicine

It’s impossible for colloidal silver to turn you blue.

Publisher’s rating: False

Related reporting describes Paul Karason as a person whose skin turned permanently blue after years of ingesting colloidal silver. That reported case directly bears on the claim that it is impossible for colloidal silver to turn someone blue: it is an account of the very outcome the claim says cannot happen. The excerpt does not describe an investigation into Karason’s medical records or establish how his condition was diagnosed. It says only that his skin turned blue after years of ingestion, and that he said the silver cured health problems including arthritis and acid reflux. Thus, this excerpt offers a reported example that conflicts with the word “impossible,” but on its own it does not document the clinical evidence or explain the precise mechanism.