
Jackson in photo playing pool with MLK Jr., actor says The Food and Drug Administration said in 1999 that there was "a lack of adequate data to establish general recognition of the safety and effectiveness of colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for (over-the-counter) use in the treatment or prevention of any disease."įact check: That's not Samuel L. Karason lived with this condition for more than 15 years, according to "TODAY." He died in 2013 from heart problems. The consumption of silver causes argyria, the permanent discoloration of the skin.

He also ingested a drink that contained colloidal silver, a product made of "tiny silver particles suspended in a liquid," according to Mayo Clinic.

COLLOIDAL SILVER BLUE MAN DIES SKIN
Karason's skin started turning blue after he began using a silver-based product to treat a skin irritation on his face, according to "TODAY." The image in the Instagram post appears to be a screenshot taken from an interview Karason did on the "TODAY" show with co-host Matt Lauer on Jan. USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment. The image shows Paul Karason, a man whose skin turned blue after he used a self-prepared silver-based skin-care product, as independent fact-checking organizations have noted. Variations of this claim have received hundreds of likes on Facebook. A recently deleted Facebook post shared Jan. The post has generated over 900 likes in the six months since it was published, and it recently regained traction on Instagram. Special access for subscribers! Click here to sign up for our fact-check text chat "When Benjy Stacy was born in 1975, nurses were shocked by his dark blue skin - only to learn that he was descended from the Fugate Family of Kentucky that was famous for having blue skin," reads the caption of the post. Social media users are now claiming that a viral image shows one of the Fugate family's descendants.Īn Instagram post shared July 13, 2021, appears to show an image of man with blue skin. The family had a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia in which the body's tissues receive insufficient oxygen, according to the National Cancer Institute. In the 1960s, the Fugate family of Kentucky became well known for their blue-colored skin, which was passed down through multiple generations. Not long after Paul Karason came to suffer from argyria, the FDA banned the use of colloidal silver in oral drugs.The claim: Image shows Benjy Stacy from the Fugate family And that's when it hit me,” Papa Smurf explained in an interview in 2008.ĭespite the fact that he stopped taking the dietary supplements, the man remained blue for the rest of his life. “And he looks at me and he says, ‘What have you got on your face?’ ‘I don't have anything on my face!’ He says, ‘Well, it looks like you've got camouflage makeup on or something.’ And by golly, he came in and he was very fair-skinned, as I used to be. The change took place so gradually that Paul Karason did not even realize something was off until a friend of his paid him a visit. However, in just a few months, the silver also turned his skin blue. And the next thing I knew, it was just gone,” Paul Karason told the press back in 2008. I had arthritis in my shoulders so bad I couldn't pull a T-shirt off. “The acid reflux problem I'd been having just went away completely. silver particles suspended in liquid) in an attempt to treat his acid reflux and arthritis.īy the looks of it, the colloidal silver proved quite effective in terms of ridding the man of said health problems. Thus, about 15 years ago, the man started taking colloidal silver (i.e.


Doctors were unable to revive him.ĪBC News tells us that Papa Smurf owed his odd skin color to a rare medical condition known as argyria, or silver poisoning. While undergoing treatment for said condition, he suffered a heart attack. Information shared with the public says that the man had been admitted to hospital to be treated for pneumonia. 62-year-old Paul Karason, otherwise known as the real-life blue man or Papa Smurf, passed away at a hospital in Washington earlier this week.
