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 (DMSO), 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 (a painful bladder inflammation), scleroderma (a condition characterized by thickening and hardening of the skin and sometimes internal organs as well) 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.