Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to the committee. I have prepared a short statement. Is it okay to read it?

Veterans Affairs committee  My name is Dr. Jane Quinn. I'm an associate professor and associate dean for research in the faculty of science at Charles Sturt University. I'm also a co-founder of the Australian Quinoline Veterans and Families Association. My background relevant to this inquiry is 30 years of

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I definitely think it should be considered as a major factor. If you have a clear causal relationship—and this is what we've just been discussing—then it is common sense that there needs to be a validation of that causality within the diagnosis. One of the significant issue

Veterans Affairs committee  Those veterans with validation through a PTSD diagnosis gain considerable benefit in their mental well being, and that needs to be applied for—

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not clear that there has been a direct collaboration. Certainly Australia and Canada are both part of the Five Eyes on mental health, a broad initiative around military veterans' mental health, particularly. But the direct collaboration—

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not sure.

Veterans Affairs committee  I know that there is international oversight of what's occurring globally, but I'm not sure that there's a specific initiative.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  First, I'm on the steering committee, so I'm not formally employed by either the Department of Veteran Affairs or Open Arms, but I sit very much as an external adviser on that committee and part of the team that has formulated how that program should look. It would hardly be ap

Veterans Affairs committee  I think that statement is somewhat simplistic. A set of diagnostic criteria includes both neurological as well as neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think that's what I said, namely, that it doesn't appear in any of the diagnostic manuals. However, the accumulation of symptoms has been published on numerous occasions, both in case reports and in articles that have taken broader populations into account.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a number of specific differentials, one of which is vestibular disorder and central vestibular disorder. The others are the particularly vivid dreaming states and the decline observed in patients suffering from after-exposure to mefloquine. The other key diagnostic in

Veterans Affairs committee  There have been a number of studies done over time. Sorry, go ahead.

Veterans Affairs committee  This was very much the position that we came into when designing the neurocognitive health program for Australia. We knew there was a cohort of veterans out in the community who were suffering from long-term neuropsychiatric and neurological health impacts, as well as other healt

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, to some extent. We have an interesting situation and it's somewhat comparable to Canada's in that there were a number of veterans who received mefloquine during clinical trials carried out by defence during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Interestingly, because they were ex