The story of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is an unusual one. It´s a by-product of the paper-making process.

First isolated by a Russian scientist in 1866, DMSO was only a laboratory curiosity until a chemist with the American paper company Crown Zellerbach, Robert Herschler, began experimenting with it in the early 1960s. 

The American surgeon Dr. Stanley Jacob got interested because DMSO’s ability to act as a human antifreeze—preventing cells from rupturing when frozen—had applications in the kidney transplant research he was doing at the time. Then about 40 years old, he came to dedicate himself single-mindedly to research and work with DMSO (and MSM, which is another story) for the rest of his life, until he died in 2015 at the age of 91.

 DMSO is a colorless liquid that can penetrate skin and other biological membranes, and take other substances with it. It smells quite strongly of sulphur, reminding of garlic, which contains a lot of sulphur. Here is a more personal reaction to its smell and taste: “It tastes like a bad oyster, smells like garlic on the breath and leaves the scent of rotten cabbages in the air.”

In 1965 it was outlawed by the FDA (The Food and Drug Administration) in the USA – 100 years after its discovery – for all medical uses except Interstitial Cystitis, a painful inflammation in the bladder. The reason given for outlawing it, was that some changes had been observed in the eyes of animals treated with DMSO, and that further research was needed.

This may sound reasonable enough, except for two undisclosed facts:

1)   DMSO was already patented by a paper company, not in the same stable as Big Pharma. It only costs cents per ounce to produce and is legally for sale to veterinarians and paper manufacturers. But it´s also being sold “under the counter” for medical and other applications, at a cost that would never make billions for a Big Pharma company.

2)   Therefore, no incentive to spend the millions of dollars needed for the “double blind” studies required for FDA approval. Besides, that kind of studies are impossible with DMSO because of its strong smell, which immediately gives away who is taking it and who isn´t. Consequently, no studies and no approval. Which means Big Pharma can continue “business as usual” selling their overpriced, FDA-approved, really dangerous pain killers, while warning the public about the “unproven”, “potentially dangerous”, “risky”, “illegal” “industrial chemical” DMSO…