Senate candidate blue -- literally

Jones has a distinct blue-gray skin color, the result of taking too much of an anti-bacterial form of pure silver.

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GREAT FALLS, Montana (AP) -- Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate has turned blue from drinking a silver solution that he believed would protect him from disease.

Stan Jones,a 63-year-old business consultant and part-time college instructor, said he started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that Y2K disruptions 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 practicing 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.

Jones is one of three candidates seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Max Baucus in November. The others are Republican state Sen. Mike Taylor and Green Party candidate Bob Kelleher.

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