Thiomolybdates in the Treatment of Wilson's Disease

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To the Editor. —Brewer and his colleagues1 report on the use of tetrathiomolybdate as an anticopper agent in the treatment of Wilson's disease, employing this compound as an initial therapy in an attempt to avoid the increase in symptoms sometimes seen after the use of chelating agents. While they refer to the important work of Mills and his associates at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, where much work has been done on experimental animals, they seem unaware that the ability of thiomolybdates to induce copper deficiency in ruminants has been known since the 1940s as was described by Dick2 in 1953. An attempt to use molybdate as an anticopper treatment for Wilson's disease was made in the 1950s3 without success. The reason for the failure of this study was that the thiosalt was not used and the molybdate and sulfate given to the patients was