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currently as Vice President for Public and Professional Education. One of my
concerns has been and is to try to keep track of drugs and other treatment methods
proposed for arthritis, and to provide information services in this area to the
Foundation's chapters, to the news media, to arthritis sufferers, and to the public in
general. I also staff the Arthritis Foundation's Committee on Unproven Remedies.
I appreciate the invitation to testify concerning DMSO, a drug which appears at
this time to fit in the arthritis "unproven remedy" category.
DMSO obviously is a "problem" drug to many people in different ways. I would
like to review for you: (1) the magnitude of the overall arthritis problem and where
DMSO fits in; (2) how the drug is a problem to the Arthritis Foundation; (3) the
Foundation's position concerning it; and (4) some conclusions.
There are 31.6 million people with arthritis in the United States, according to a
1976 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics. The total population at
the time was 211 million, which meant the prevalence rate was one in seven people.
It also means that approximately one in seven of the constituents of each member
of the Committee has arthritis to some degree.
Of the 31.6 million, 10.6 million are over 65, for a prevalence rate of one in two.
Also out of the national total, an estimated 6.5 million have rheumatoid arthritis.
Of the major kinds of arthritis, this is the one which causes the most pain and
potential disability. A small percentage-but it adds up to nearly one million-of
these rheumatoid arthritis victims have the disease in such a serious and unrelent-
ing form that even the best of treatment fails to keep it under control. Their pain
can be agonizing and relentless. Disabilities can develop rapidly. These people
become desperate and willing to try anything for relief, at any risk, at any cost.
This is totally understandable.
For the past eight years or so, border arthritis clinics in Mexico-particularly one
in Piedras Negras-have had enormous success in luring such sufferers to receive
what is alleged to be DMSO, a drug "banned" in the United States. Patients stay for
two or three days to get intravenously what is advertised as DMSO, and buy large
take-home dose-yourself supplies of pills, also supposedly DMSO.
They return from Mexico with glowing reports of severe disabilities and pain
disappearing overnight, and consistently good improvement for a time afterward.
This kind of testimonial helps to recruit planeloads of arthritis sufferers from
throughout the U.S. to make the pilgrimage. According to report, treatment fees
and travel together cost a Florida woman $1,400 each time she visited the clinic.
They are getting help for their arthritis, but the switch here is that it's not DMSO
that's doing it. Investigation has shown that patients actually get other medication
which is generally available in the United States, but prescribed with caution
because of risks.
There's no telling how many thousands of arthritis sufferers have gone this
Mexican route and are not DMSO disciples. To what extent was the false public
image of DMSO a factor influencing the action of the legislative bodies in Florida to
legalize DMSO within the state?
From its beginnings back in the early 1960s when DMSO was first acclaimed as a
"wonder drug" for arthritis, the scientific issues concerning its effectiveness and
safety have been clouded by emotionalism.
Add DMSO's Mexican image today, and it's no wonder there are pressures from
people who believe there must be some nefarious reason that the drug hasn't been
released by the FDA. I submit that if the Committee seeks to sort out scientific
truth concerning the merits of DMSO, it must appreciate the distortions that evolve
from what I have just described.
The Arthritis Foundation's first allegiance in matters of arthritis remedies is to
the arthritis patient, or victim. Patient advocacy is a key role for us. Arthritis
sufferers turn to the Foundation-especially to its chapters-for answers to ques-
tions about remedies. We encourage that.
We view it as our obligation to determine facts and provide them as guidance in
helping people with arthritis to make wise decisions about their health. Since 1973,
my office at the Foundation has issued eight advisories on DMSO to our chapters,
constituting updates, status reports, and guidance for handling public inquiries.
So for the Foundation, the DMSO controversy has been and is first of all a
consumer protection/public health education problem.
To the extent that determining and reporting facts is neutral, then the Arthritis
Foundation's position is neutral. We have not sought to “take sides”—I don't think
that would be appropriate for us.
But the Foundation did go on record in 1977 as disapproving legislation to permit
use of DMSO by individual states. And we did indicate that we accepted the
conclusions of the Ad Hoc Committee on Dimethyl Sulfoxide of the National Acade-
