Thank you so much, Chair.
Thank you all for being here and for your bravery in presenting your circumstances. We have a lot of work to do at this committee, and you will make a significant difference to that, so thank you very much.
My focus right now is on you, Dr. Nevin. In 2015 you wrote a research paper, “Issues in the Prevention of Malaria Among Women at War”, and my colleagues and I look forward to hearing your findings about how that can have significant implications, as we're hearing, on the health care of Canadian female military service members today.
However, I think it's really important for the current members of this committee to also know the concerns of our armed forces with respect to the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, which has been the required drug of first resort for Canadian Armed Forces members—both men and women—in the last three decades.
In 1992 on a deployment to Somalia, Canada's elite airborne paratroopers received the then-unlicensed drug as part of a drug study. Military personnel were told they must take the drug or face disciplinary actions. Very clear protocols were set forth, yet few, if any, were followed by either DND or Health Canada. Although the drug was administered, no proper testing was done and no results were noted.
In January 1993, Health Canada, in advance of its own research being completed, approved the drug for civilian use in Canada. Three months later, a young Somali boy was murdered on a Canadian base in Somalia. This event would later become known as the Somalia Affair.
After the 1993 federal election, Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party initiated a highly visible inquiry. However, a year later, in 1994, just as data was being collected on the role mefloquine played in the event, the Chrétien government abruptly shut down the inquiry just ahead of the 1997 election.
This report, the 1997 Somalia inquiry report, should be read by all members of this committee. The abrupt shutdown was questioned in 1999 at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts when former MP John Cummins stated that he was in personal possession of an October 1997 departmental note to the then-defence minister advising the DND to mislead the Somalia inquiry on the status of mefloquine and advising him to mislead the public as to where DND got the drug.
While the Liberal government continued its cover-up, ignoring its veterans while requiring service members to continue to take mefloquine, the U.S. military responded to the Fort Bragg murder-suicides of 2002, in which four military wives were killed and two of the partners that killed them then committed suicide. There was research into the potential impact of mefloquine on those partners who were required to consume mefloquine while in Afghanistan.
Dr. Nevin, I have two questions that I'll put together for you. What was the 2009 decision made by the U.S. military because of their research? We know that many of our other allies were also using mefloquine at this time, and in response to the U.S. decision, I believe, they held inquiries of their own that responded to the concerns of their veterans. I'm wondering if you're aware of which other countries made changes to the use of this drug within their forces and what they did specifically.
Could you succinctly respond to that?
Thank you.