The use of mefloquine in 1992 among deploying members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment to Somalia is extremely problematic. I don't understand the legal basis for the Canadian military's use of mefloquine in that population. Drugs cannot be prescribed or distributed without a legal basis.
The drug became available to the Canadian Forces under the guise of an existing small-scale clinical research protocol that, up until that point, had resulted in the distribution of the drug to dozens of Canadian Forces personnel after they had completed informed consent and after they had reviewed information that included the warning to discontinue the drug at the onset of symptoms such as anxiety.
Clayton Matchee and about 1,000 other deploying members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment received industrial quantities of mefloquine that were ordered under that protocol. The Canadian Forces readily admits they had no intention of abiding by the terms of that clinical research study. They were not victims of a botched clinical study. The clinical study was not being performed. The clinical study was the mechanism by which the Canadian Forces obtained industrial quantities of the drug that they otherwise could not have obtained.
The legal basis for the use of that drug has never, I think, been properly explored, but the consequences of not abiding by the clinical protocol have been profound to your country.
They have been profound because Clayton Matchee, for example, was never told that when he began to experience restlessness, anxiety and hallucinations he was to stop taking the drug. In fact, when he told others that he was experiencing those symptoms—when he returned home on leave, for example—and family members expressed concern, he said that he couldn't stop taking the drug. We all know what happened in subsequent weeks, don't we?
We know that led to the disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, which is something that could have been prevented had the Canadian Forces not taken what I think were extreme liberties with the law.