Wonder or quack drug?It relieves the pain and swelling of arthritis, heals burns, soothes
toothaches, eases headaches and muscle strains, and clears up viral,
fungal and bacterial infections. It helps retarded children, prevents
paralysis from spinal-cord injuries, and even grows hair on bald pates.
And it is safe to use. At least so claim the dedicated defenders of
dimethyl sulfoxide , which was enthusiastically promoted as a
“wonder drug” in the early 1960s but then fell from grace after the
Food and Drug Administration halted its testing in 1965 because of
possible harmful side effects.Now a combination of a congressional hearing, an erroneous press report
that the Arthritis Foundation had urged FDA approval of the drug and a
segment on the TV show 60 Minutes have put DMSO back in the spotlight
and renewed the controversy over its effectiveness. Is DMSO, as its
supporters stubbornly claim, “the aspirin of the 21st century”? Or is
it, as its detractors insist, merely a quack drug, “another Laetrile”?Though DMSO was discovered by a Russian scientist in 1866, it attracted
little interest until the 1950s when increasing industrial uses were
found for it. DMSO, derived as a byproduct in converting trees to
paper, is an antifreeze and a versatile solvent for a broad spectrum of
chemicals. But scientists were startled to find it also had a
remarkable capacity to penetrate skin and tissues and enter the
bloodstream; its only apparent side effects were an oysterlike taste in
the mouth and a garlicky breath odor.A pioneer in exploring DMSO's medicinal uses, and an ardent champion
ever since, was Surgeon Stanley Jacob of the University of Oregon
Health Sciences Center, who in the early 1960s began by trying it in
isolated cases of burns, sprained ankles and arthritis. From those
beginnings, he says, “the uses grew like Topsy.”By 1965 some 100,000 people were using DMSO, primarily to treat sprains,
bruises, minor burns and arthritis. The FDA'S concern about such
widespread use of an experimental drug grew into alarm when animal
studies indicated that DMSO might cause eye damage. That led to a
virtual ban on clinical tests of the drug. But only a year later the
restrictions were eased to permit experiments in such hard-to-treat
illnesses as interstitial cystitis ,
scleroderma and rheumatoid
arthritis.Though no one is sure of the long-term side effects of human use, DMSO
is now generally held, even by the FDA, to be a comparatively safe
drug, though it can cause skin rashes and hives, and has been
associated with headaches and nausea. Eye damage, reported in
laboratory animals, has not been confirmed. The big sticking point in
the DMSO debate is efficacy. So far, the drug has won FDA approval for
general use only in cystitis. The agency contends that it has received
few applications for controlled tests of the drug and that most data
supporting its use for other ailments come from poorly designed
studies, something Jacob and other enthusiasts dispute.
