Evidence of meeting #117 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was drug.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
How can you not if you prescribed it and handed it to them when they were on deployment?
BGen Andrew Downes
We don't have lists of who took it. It might be in their medical record, but we would have to pull every record to have a look.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Excuse me, sir, in Somalia every person who was serving in the Canadian Airborne Regiment was handed it as they got off the plane. Would you not have a list of everyone who deployed?
BGen Andrew Downes
Well, on the medical side, we don't have a list of everybody who deployed. Perhaps—
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Please don't tell me that we don't know who has served where. I could put it out on Facebook and I would know every person who was deployed to Somalia.
BGen Andrew Downes
Well, I would say, though that—and, sir, perhaps this is a question for you—in the past we have not tracked very well the people who have deployed. I think it would be fair to say that was the case back in the early 1990s.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Okay. Can I ask, then, knowing what our new monograph says about the potential for this to cause permanent injury to these individuals.... In Australia they have identified 14 conditions—not symptoms, conditions—that are basically the result of having taken the drug. Can we not say that we are going to do everything we can to reach out to Canadian veterans who took mefloquine to find out if they are suffering from the effects of this drug? We have a new monograph. We have a new report from the surgeon general. None of that information has been in any way disseminated to our veterans, who may have or did take this drug while they were on tour and are experiencing these conditions now. Our government, our armed forces, is not attempting to reach out to them. What is our plan for screening related to mefloquine specifically?
BGen Andrew Downes
Related to mefloquine specifically, we are not planning to do a screening of all people who may have taken this drug. What we are doing is encouraging people who have symptoms to come forward for care, regardless of whether the symptoms are related to mefloquine or something else.
BGen Andrew Downes
I can tell you that even back in the 1990s I had a patient who believed his symptoms were related to mefloquine—
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Excuse me, sir, I don't want to interrupt, but I just have so much to ask.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
I appreciate that there's nothing specifically being done for mefloquine itself at this point in time. However, from the surgeon general's report—and I realize this isn't your report specifically, but I'm sure you're familiar with it—it says that the CAF “members deploying to Somalia did not participate in the SMS study since the guidelines of the study were not compatible with the operational requirement to deploy to Somalia.”
Yet they were given this drug. The whole purpose of front-end loading that drug and being on that drug while they were in Somalia was to be part of this test. That's the reason the Canadian Armed Forces got tens of thousands of this drug and took no other anti-malarial drug with them to Somalia. Is it not a misuse of that drug in that circumstance when we did not comply with the requirements to have that drug as part of that deployment?
BGen Andrew Downes
—that looked at this issue and identified shortcomings, certainly, in our processes surrounding the prescription of mefloquine to deploying members. I should point out that prior to going to Somalia, we also accessed mefloquine for a number of other deployments, and in those particular circumstances, we complied with the requirements of the study.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.
I know from the last meeting where we had witnesses on this topic there was much concern about the number of servicemen and servicewomen who are choosing to use mefloquine. I do know the Canadian Armed Forces made the decision to prescribe the medication only when it had been requested.
One of the previous witnesses has shared that in the U.S., mefloquine accounts for less than 1% of the prescriptions to treat servicewomen and servicemen. Currently, in the Canadian Armed Forces that's at 5%. Can you speak to some of the reasons you might be aware of as to why individuals are opting for mefloquine?
BGen Andrew Downes
Last year, 2018, there were three people who received mefloquine. I don't know how many in total received anti-malarials. So far this year there has been none.
