A recent HND piece examines this once-popular all-purpose remedy. As it happens, my curiosity was piqued on the subject, based on e-mail correspondence I had received regarding the so-called Toxic Lady.
My 1998 article on that subject (as linked to above) presented the findings of the folks at Lawrence Livermore Labs, and to date, DMSO oxidation to toxic dimethyl sulfate is given as the official cause of those bizarre events. No one has ever proffered a better explanation, and no one has volunteered to provide the millions of dollars necessary to re-open the case.
Let's just say that people familiar with the chemistry of DMSO find the reactions proposed by Lawrence Livermore to be a bit farfetched.
Read the complete article.
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