Nevin adds, the drug continues to affect many soldiers to this day, decades later. Download full-text PDF ... nightmares . But its use there, beginning in 2003, was deeply controversial, with a flurry of Could mefloquine use from that long ago have contributed to the massacre?We are learning more and more about long-term effects of mefloquine:Could permanent, but nearly undetectable brain damage from mefloquine, combined with a traumatic brain injury, alcohol, and steroids, explain the crime?But it appears from reports that Bales was also given mefloquine in Afghanistan, and a mefloquine-induced psychosis could definitely explain that night’s events.While many soldiers who have taken Lariam without obvious ill-effects have expressed understandable skepticism that the drug could cause violent behaviors, my colleague, Dr. Lawsuit set to be launched against the government regarding Mefloquine Hundreds of veterans are set to launch a lawsuit against the government for being prescribed Mefloquine, an antimalarial drug with extreme side effects that haunt these former soldiers to this day.“We’re going to try our hardest to get some justice for these guys,” said Paul Miller, one of the lawyers representing veterans in the proposed lawsuit.In just six weeks Miller and his colleagues have been contacted by nearly 375 veterans who believe that Mefloquine has had a debilitating effect in their lives. Believing he was surrounded by explosions and flames, he quickly donned his weapon and combat gear and conducted a deliberate room-to-room search, where he was shocked to perceive his sleeping teammates as mangled corpses.Other users have reported waking with uncontrollable violent or suicidal impulses, and acting bizarrely. These reports seemed to point to Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales — who has pled guilty to killing the Afghans in March 2012 — but there was no response from either his lawyer or the Army to requests for comment.Still no comment from the Army, to the best of my knowledge.Mefloquine had been used widely in Iraq at the beginning of the war. Mefloquine is an anti-malarial drug used by the CAF since 1992 in deployments including Somalia, Congo, Rwanda and Afghanistan. 3 Since mefloquine… Another committed Perhaps for these reasons, the new Roche product documentation for Lariam very clearly states that “nightmares… have to be regarded as prodromal (early symptoms) for Are other explanations besides mefloquine possible? Sheets, who served in the U.S. Navy from 2000 to 2006, said he immediately experienced "violent and tragic nightmares" the first time he took Lariam, during a deployment in 2003. One user of the drug jumped to his death falsely believing his hotel room was on fire. or . Although the drug has been approved by many countries, Hoffman La Roche was still looking to have the drug approved in Canada in the 1980s and was, therefore, conducting clinical trials.
Mefloquine is still being offered – though not as a first option – to Canadian troops who are deployed to malaria-ridden countries. Drugs Used to Treat Nightmares. groups). In late June, I published “A Smoking Pillbox,” about a report of a soldier with a history of traumatic brain injury, who after taking Lariam (mefloquine), had gunned down 16 Afghan civilians. Miller and the veterans also argue that the soldiers were not properly informed of the side effects of Mefloquine.The once-a-week tabled works by “readily penetrate and accumulate inside blood cells.”“Unfortunately, this same property that lends mefloquine its long-lasting effectiveness leads to mefloquine being neurotoxic, meaning that instead of remaining in the blood where it acts to kill the malaria parasite, it can enter into the brain and kill brain cells instead,” said Dr. Remington Nevin, executive director of The Quinism Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting research and education on the effects of mefloquine and related drugs.Some of the common early side effects of the medication suffered by the soldiers include abnormal dreams, nightmares, and insomnia and are all warning signs of neuropsychiatric quinism, poisoning of the brain by Mefloquine.Recent research indicates that nearly one in seven exposed to the drug experience abnormal dreams and nightmares and one in five complain of nightmares three years after exposure.Eventually, Mefloquine was licensed in Canada, and the military continued the administer the drug to troops without, says Miller, disclosing side effects to the military personnel.Mefloquine was administered to Canadian troops until only a few years ago.“For years, Canadian soldiers were told to ignore such symptoms, but left unchecked, mefloquine poisoning can cause permanent injury to the brain and brainstem, resulting in lasting symptoms including tinnitus, dizziness, vertigo, paresthesias, visual disturbances, nightmares, insomnia, sleep apnea, anxiety, agoraphobia, paranoia, cognitive dysfunction, depression, personality change, and suicidal thoughts,” explained Dr. Nevin.Dr.
In 2017, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces announced the release of findings from the Surgeon General’s review on the operational use of mefloquine.
What a difference a month can make.