The human toxicology of dimethyl sulfoxide.

On November 11, 1965, research on DMSO in the United States came to an abrupt halt. A conference between the Food and Drug Administration and the pharmaceutical companies who were involved in the research was called because lens changes had been observed in a number of mammalian species. No changes ha been observed in man or any primates. The FDA and the pharmaceutical companies agreed, because there had been no pretreatment examinations of eyes and a large number of patients were under therapy, to discontinue the clinical studies: Somehow, at this time, DMSO gained a reputation of extreme toxicity, comparable to that of thalidomide and some other drugs that had previously run into major toxicology problems. Many of us in the pharmaceutical industry felt that this reputation was undeserved.