Professor Roy Kimble who is the director of burns and trauma at the Royal Children Hospital in Brisbane feels that the use of silver dressings is totally justified. "The vast majority of burns surgeons in Australia use silver dressings. It's a special silver lattice, which you add water to and it releases silver atom ions and silver atoms. Silver ions kill bacteria and silver atoms almost certainly work as an anti-inflammatory. Both of which are very good for burn wound healing." says Professor Roy Kimble.

Professor Kimble has been associated with a number of studies on the nano-crystalline silver dressing used by most burn units in Australia and he says that using the silver dressing actually reduces the burn wound infection. Plus he finds that the silver dressing is more cost effective as it does not need to be changed as often as other dressings do.

Also since evaluation of other types of dressings will increase the risk of burn wound infection he feels that it would be simply not ethical to provide burn patients with other dressings to conduct a study.