The American Medical Association (AMA) held a leadership conference the weekend of February 14, 1981, and one of its speakers was Otis R. Bowen, M.D. Dr. Bowen is former governor of Indiana, a leader in medicine, management, and politics. In his presentation to the AMA, he shocked the assembly by admitting that he took the law into his own hands and
used an illegal drug to ease his wife’s pain while she was dying. Beth Bowen died
January 1, 1981, after months of agony
from multiple myeloma, a type of bone
cancer.
Dr. Bowen, who was preparing to step
down from the governorship at the time, turned to dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, to
ease his wife’s intense pain. He had obtained the liquid solvent from a
veterinarian and found that it relieved his wife’s suffering “in minutes,” he said.