A big part of what I do in Ottawa takes place at Standing Committees.
I’m a member of the Standing Committee for Environment and Sustainability along with National Defence. I didn’t know anything about anti-malarial drug Mefloquine use in the Canadian Armed Forces before constituents brought it to my attention- but it’s on my radar now.
Mefloquine is a controversial anti-malarial drug with potentially serious side effects.
I continue to bring up the issue of Mefloquine use in our Armed Forces at Committee and I look forward to the Canadian Armed Forces Surgeon General’s report on Mefloquine.
“I was on mefloquine for a year. About five months into it, I wrote the National Defence Headquarters, and I said this thing is affecting my ability to think. This thing is blowing my stomach apart. This thing is affecting my memory, and I want to get rid of it. At the time, the Germans weren’t using anything, but then when we lost two people in 48 hours to cerebral malaria, they changed their policy.I then got a message back, which was one of the fastest ones I have ever got back, which essentially ordered me to continue, and if not, I would then be court-martialled for a self-inflicted wound because that was the only tool they had. Mefloquine is old-think, and it does affect our ability to operate. “