by Judi McLeod
May 21, 2004
a powerful pill, routinely prescribed to United States troops in Iraq, could be playing a key role in the bizarre conduct of soldiers posing in the now world-infamous Iraq abuse photographs.
The same pill, the anti-malaria lariam, more widely known generically as mefloquine, brought down the entire elite Canadian airborne Regiment by forcing its total disbanding after Somalia in 1995.
as there is a year-round risk of contracting malaria in Somalia, anti-malaria medication was a no-brainer for Canadian troops deployed to Somalia.
Side effects from mefloquine sent some troops to the medics, and when an experimental drug to combat cholera was given to troops every Thursday, soldiers jokingly called it, "psycho Thursday."
Some 10 years after, while Canadian soldiers are in afghanistan, the Department of National Defence is calling for a study into the side effects of mefloquine.
Part of the official Somalia inquiry into the torture and killing of a 16-year-old Somali boy and the in-theatre suicide attempt of his murderer, Canadian Master Cpl. Clayton Matchee, focused on the use of mefloquine.
according to the Canadian Department of Defence, "the first public suggestion that mefloquine might have caused, or contributed to, abnormal behaviour in Somalia appears to have been made by Major Barry armstrong, the officer commanding the surgical section of the medical unit in Somalia.
"Speaking to the Canadian Forces Medical Services Group Conference, Operational Medicine, Oct. 26, 1993 Maj. armstrong argued: `I believe the UN’s failures in Somalia are rather exceptional, considering previous peacekeeping successes. I believe that a simple reason may exist. Canadian and american troops may have been impaired by the use of mefloquine’…"
It was a testimony to military dishonour when the ill-fated UN peacekeeping mission in 1993 Somalia, sent out shock waves, worldwide with Canadian, Belgian and Italian soldiers posing in photographs while subjecting hungry Somalis who had only pilfered food from the soldiers’ camps, to the most unspeakable indignities.
King in the annuals of military infamy was Canadian Master Cpl. Clayton Matchee, depicted holding the head of 16-year-old Somali Shidane arone in March of 1993. Decent folk the world over couldn’t believe that Matchee had graduated at the first of his class from a Christian Centre Sunday School in Saskatchewan.
a relatively new anti-malaria drug, mefloquine was first made generally public to the Canadian public in 1993.
It was never, of course exclusive to a Canadian public.
The question should now be if the most-prescribed malaria drug could produce psychiatric side effects in more than one-quarter of all travelers who take it, what could it do to troops fighting battles in foreign countries?
Like Rwanda and Iraq, for example.
Most CF members stationed in Somalia in 1992 and 1993 were prescribed weekly does of mefloquine. Says a DND report: "However, some CF pilots and divers received another anti-malaria drug, doxycycline, because mefloquine was thought to cause dizziness and loss of fine motor control in some users."
Mefloquine is "well known to have neurologic side effects". One British doctor working in Kampala for some 30 years states that he "never advises patients to take mefloquine. It is a very dangerous drug."
The manufacturer’s literature states that reactions are rare, but include convulsions, psychosis, nightmares, dizziness, headache, confusion, anxiety and depression."
On Oct. 6, 1994, Canadian Member of Parliament John Cummins raised the possibility the drug (presumably mefloquine) may have contributed to the violent behaviour of MCpl Matchee in the death of Shidane arone.
The Pentagon is studying the side affects of mefloquine after the suicides of american soldiers.
U.S. army Chief Warrant Officer Bill Howell began taking the anti-malaria drug before going to Iraq in 2003. In March, three weeks after returning home, Howell fatally shot himself in his front yard.
and there are others.
Was Pfc. Lynndie England, in her now familiar image of holding a leash around the neck of an abu Ghraib prisoner a victim of the neuropsychiatric side effects of mefloquine?
The disbanding of the entire Canadian airborne Regiment in Somalia was swift and heartwrenching. When the disbanded unit’s honourary Colonel, Prince andrew visited Toronto last year, he was dressed in the airborne regiment’s uniform.
If mefloquine had the power to help disband the entire elite Canadian airborne Regiment, what will it cost americans?
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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