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Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My compliments to each of the panel members. I think it is rare
to have such eloquent testimony in succession, but I think it says
something about your individual conviction about this issue.
Dr. Jacob, I remember you coming back to Senator Neuburger's
office 16 or 17 years ago.
Dr. JACOB. I am a little older but maybe not wiser.
Mr. BONKER. But we are not making much progress.
Dr. JACOB. No, and that is sad.
Mr. BONKER. I hope you would not have to come back much
longer until there is some success. We are going to hear from the
FDA shortly and it will be interesting to hear their response to this
overwhelming testimony in favor of DMSO.
Dr. Jacob, I was just handed a note from my staff and today our
office has received three phone calls from a community in the
State of Washington regarding Melody Clark, an 8-year old child
who has what is known as Down's syndrome.
The message says this: At 11 months she was typically unable to
stand or walk, had protruding tongue and all the other symptoms.
Her parents heard of Dr. Stanley Jacob and went to Portland to try
DMSO on her. Today Melody is a miracle child for the entire
community. She walks, runs, talks, reads, spells well, her teeth are
developing almost normally. Her tongue does not protrude. Are you
familiar with this case?
Dr. JACOB. Yes, I know Melody well. She is a typical Mongoloid
in whom we began treatment at 11 months. She is now 8 years old.
She is still a Mongoloid, but according to her teachers in school she
has made more progress than any Mongoloid child they have ever
seen. She has been on DMSO for 7 years.
Mr. BONKER. Dr. Reedy, it is a pleasure to have you here not
only because of your experience but because you are a prominent
constituent of mine. Enumclaw is located in the northeastern sec-
tion of my district. I want to welcome you, as your resident Con-
gressman, and thank you once again for your testimony.
It seems to me that your experience has been that the applica-
tion of DMSO to problems of swelling seems to bring forth some
solution. We have heard about pain and other things but in this
particular case you have had tremendous success with swelling. Is
that a fairly high percentage of the time it works with swelling or
is it 50 percent of the time? I think your testimony said 70 percent
success.
Dr. REEDY. Our experience, Mr. Bonker, was that we had 70 or 80
percent of the time that the player would experience excellent
reduction in the swelling as well as in the reduction of pain.
One of the points in getting a patient back to rehabilitative
status is due to the swelling as well as the pain. If we can reduce
the swelling quickly, the joint has more mobility and as a result
the player can tolerate a bit more pain as he rehabilitates himself.
In summary, we felt the reduction of swelling was every bit as
significant and even possibly more in terms of assisting the reha-
bilitation as was the rehabilitation of pain.
Mr. BONKER. It seems to me that from the testimony we have
had today, that contrary to earlier notions that this solution works
only-well, not only but exclusively on problems of arthritis, we
