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Odd Human Skin Pigmentation (Blue; Purple; Etc.)

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Anonymous

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The mental images this one presents are pure comedy, I'm sure tabloid headline writers would have a field day with it.

As posted in Ananova

Politician turns blue from drinking 'health' solution

A US politician has turned blue from drinking a silver solution he believed would protect him from disease.

Stan Jones, Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate, started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that disruptions linked to the millennium might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.

He made his own concoction by electrically charging a couple of silver wires in a glass of water.

His skin began turning blue-gray a year ago.

"People ask me if it's permanent and if I'm dead," he said. "I tell them I'm practising for Halloween."

He does not take the supplement any longer, but the skin condition, called argyria, is permanent.

The condition is generally not serious.

Colloidal silver dietary supplements are marketed widely as an anti-bacterial agent or immune-system booster, but some consider it quackery.

Mr Jones is one of three candidates seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Max Baucus in November.

Story filed: 12:47 Thursday 3rd October 2002

I've got two cases of Grade A Snake-Oil to sell him if he's interested and some Aluminium hats that protect from aliens beaming thought control messages.
:rolleyes:
 
If he'd turned pink or red of course it would have been the end of his political career.
 
it would be funny to see him walk around Captial Hill moaning "BRAINS! I NEED BRAINS! MMMMMM"

i wonder how this solution tasted.
 
Someithng similar:

No Silver Lining

Users Claim Liquid Silver in Supplements, Nose Drops Turned Skin Silver

By Greg Hunter


June 9, 2004 — It's an old elixir in new packaging: silver.


People seeking alterative remedies are buying liquid silver dietary supplements in health food stores or surfing the Web.

"If they have some kind of bacterial infection and they don't want to take an antibiotic, they'll use silver," according to Richard, the owner of two health food stores in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Richard sells a line of products from a company called Invision and says if his customers did not want the product he wouldn't stock it. He says he also uses it himself and has never seen anyone have problems with it.

Dhyana Coburn is another who believes liquid silver can help fight some illnesses. She makes silver supplement for her own personal use and wrote a book touting the merits of the metal.

"Personally, I've used it to heal conjunctivitis and bronchitis," Coburn maintains.

Fueled by word of mouth and word on the Web, silver mixtures are part of the almost billion that Americans spent on dietary supplements last year.

But there are problems with silver supplements.

Silver May Cause a Rare Skin Condition

"It has never been proven to work," notes Dr. Bruce Bouts, an internist in Findlay, Ohio.

Even worse, some users, like Rosemary Jacobs and Arline Gilliam, say their skin has actually turned a silvery color after ingesting it.

"I was convinced that it was supposed to be really good for me," Gilliam recalls. "I turned silver in 2002. It is devastating. I notice people staring at me all the time."

Jacobs and Gilliam suffer from a rare condition called argyria, which causes sufferers' skin to turn gray or bluish from ingesting silver.

Bouts has seen five argyria patients. He warns that those who ingest silver may be taking a risk without any potential health benefit.

"It won't help you keep healthy, ward off disease, prevent the common cold, find Osama bin Laden," he comments.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Living/Silver_Supplements_Hunter_040609-1.html
 
If I had an extra lifetime to spare, I'd take this stuff just to turn blue/grey. :p

Anyway, I seem to recall from one of my chemistry classes that silver is toxic...?
 
:rofl: hahahahahahahaha

I can't believe the stupidity of politicians. This totally made my day.
 
In the UK 18th and 19th Centuries when Medical Quackery was getting mixed with a little a scientific / chemical knowledge, drugs were being produced that contained among other things Mercury, Silver Nitrate, & Powder Lead!!

Aside from the slow poisining effect's you could walk the streets of say London or Edinburgh and see people sporting some strange hues! (Green was quite common due to the mercury!)

It would be hard to derscribe it as stupidity as many people knew these drugs might be at best uneffective, or at worst poison but the low prices some street "phiysics" charged meant it was for many the only affordable option.

Mr P
 
Colloidal Silver

And let's not forget that a certain percentage of Caucasian individuals (I'm merely ignorant as to the effect on other races, though I suspect it is similar) who consume colloidal silver for medicinal purposes discover themselves left with permanently colorless skin, like a black-and-white photograph. Venous blood makes the skin appear blue.

This does not appear to cause any major physiological damage.

Psychological is another matter.
 
Has no one ever taken a picture of one of them? I'd love to see it.
 
I remember there was an article in Bizarre magazine about this, but it being the April issue I didn't pay it much attention. There were some photos with that (including a couple of people dressed up as smurfs...)

I used to work in a healthfood store and heard a number of customers express concern that they would turn grey or blue if they drank colloidal silver, but you'd have to drink one hell of a lot for it to have that effect.
 
The woman who leads the Internet charge against colloidal silver - I'll have to look up her name - claims that the colloidal silver she took for a short time at age 14 or so, under her physician's instructions, left her with life-long bluish/grey skin. (She is now in her sixties.)

The last I heard she was in excellent health but she claims that whenever she pays a social visit to a hospital where she is not known the staff immediately tries to rush her into the emergency ward!
 
They don't look too odd until you see them next to a normal, pink-looking person.
 
A few years ago I was shopping in Liverpool City Centre when a passing man caught my eye. He was very tall and thin and walked with a pronounced stoop. He had shoulder length hair (he looked a little like the astrologer Justin Toper) and was wearing jeans and a leather jacket.

What really attracted my attention was the fact that his skin was purple! It wasn't a natural skin tone whatsoever, it was totally unnatural. I'd never seen skin that colour on anybody before, a weird metallic lilac shade. I got the strangest feeling of 'wrongness' from him and felt a little disoriented as he passed. He didn't seem to draw attention from anybody else however and melted into the crowds. He didn't acknowledge me at all.

A few weeks later I was once again shopping but in an entirely separate area of the city when I suddenly felt inexplicably panicked. I looked around me to see the cause of this and walking toward me was another purple man! Exactly the same colour, same hair, same outfit but smaller and stockier than the first bloke. This time though he looked directly at me and look crossed his face which I read as "Shit, she can see me" He put his head down and walked past me hurriedly, I felt nauseous as we crossed paths. I turned to see which way he had gone and he'd literally vanished into thin air. Poof, gone!

I've never been so freaked out. I really got the feeling that they were not of this world, like they were trying to appear human but not quite getting it right.Thankfully, I haven't seen them again and I hope I never do.
 
A few years ago I was shopping in Liverpool City Centre when a passing man caught my eye. He was very tall and thin and walked with a pronounced stoop. He had shoulder length hair (he looked a little like the astrologer Justin Toper) and was wearing jeans and a leather jacket.

What really attracted my attention was the fact that his skin was purple! It wasn't a natural skin tone whatsoever, it was totally unnatural. I'd never seen skin that colour on anybody before, a weird metallic lilac shade. I got the strangest feeling of 'wrongness' from him and felt a little disoriented as he passed. He didn't seem to draw attention from anybody else however and melted into the crowds. He didn't acknowledge me at all.

A few weeks later I was once again shopping but in an entirely separate area of the city when I suddenly felt inexplicably panicked. I looked around me to see the cause of this and walking toward me was another purple man! Exactly the same colour, same hair, same outfit but smaller and stockier than the first bloke. This time though he looked directly at me and look crossed his face which I read as "Shit, she can see me" He put his head down and walked past me hurriedly, I felt nauseous as we crossed paths. I turned to see which way he had gone and he'd literally vanished into thin air. Poof, gone!

I've never been so freaked out. I really got the feeling that they were not of this world, like they were trying to appear human but not quite getting it right.Thankfully, I haven't seen them again and I hope I never do.
You rumbled them. They blew the gaff.
Now they're in London, blending in with the locals.
 
I wonder, if you type 'silver poisoning' or 'argyria' into google images, does that look about right? Or 'amiodarone blue skin', that's another possibility?*

*no medical knowledge implied. Just long standing interest in weirdness.
 
I wonder, if you type 'silver poisoning' or 'argyria' into google images, does that look about right? Or 'amiodarone blue skin', that's another possibility?*

*no medical knowledge implied. Just long standing interest in weirdness.

I've considered this possibility before and googled it previously. Just in case I was accusing two poor industrially injured gents of being non - humans. It doesn't look or feel quite right to me though but, of course, I can't entirely rule it out.
I think it was more the fact that they were wearing identikit outfits and hairstyles as well as being a bizarre colour. They even walked the same but were definitely different people.
 
face only or face and hands ? port wine stain birthmark ?

Only face, neck and hands were visible but all were purple. What I could see didn't look blotchy at all, just solid colour.
 
poor guy if it is some kind of birth pigmentation anomaly, to elicit that reaction ... on the other hand, emo ?
 
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