To distinguish the military, the Department of National Defence, from VAC.... I have long stated that we will make the most progress on this issue with a simple acknowledgement in the United States, either by DOD or VA, that mefloquine is the cause of some degree of chronic disability among veterans. If a senior DOD leader in the United States were to acknowledge this in a memorandum or in a public forum, or if a senior official at the Department of Veterans Affairs were to make a similar acknowledgement, this would do more than anything else.
It's my belief that the clinicians in both of these organizations recognize the problems caused by mefloquine, but after 25 years of being told by senior leadership that this drug is not a problem, they are still somewhat reluctant to come forward and identify these problems in their patient population. What they need to see is a clear green light from their leaders that this will not result in any adverse impacts on either the clinicians' careers or the members' careers.
To address your question specifically, if the Department of National Defence would simply acknowledge what is obvious from the product monograph updates—namely what I discussed in my opening statement, that there is clearly some degree of chronic disability among Canadian veterans as a result of their use of mefloquine, particularly without the benefit of the updated warnings—that, I think, would do more than anything else.
From—