Chinese herb better than sulfasalazine

A new study suggests that extracts from a Chinese medicinal plant, Tripterygium wilfordii, may be more effective in treating the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis than sulfasalazine. While sulfasalazine may not be the first drug that comes to mind for inflammatory arthritis, I was on it for a while myself (when I was trying a few different treatments). Since the treatments for RA are usually directly applicable to ankylosing spondylitis, this may well have some implications for how our disease is treated down the road. The analogy that comes to mind is willow bark and acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin).