Robert Bales Charged: Military Works To Limit Malaria Drug In Midst Of Afghanistan Massacre

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is in the midst of a widespread review of the military’s use of a notorious anti-malaria drug after finding out that the pills have been wrongly given to soldiers with preexisting problems, including brain injuries such as the one sustained by the U.S. soldier who allegedly massacred 17 civilians in Afghanistan.

Mefloquine, also called Lariam, has severe psychiatric side effects. Problems include psychotic behavior, paranoia and hallucinations. The drug has been implicated in numerous suicides and homicides, including deaths in the U.S. military. For years the military has used the weekly pill to help prevent malaria among deployed troops.

The U.S. Army nearly the dropped use of mefloquine entirely in 2009 because of the dangers, now only using it in limited circumstances, including sometimes in Afghanistan. The 2009 order from the Army said soldiers who have suffered a traumatic brain injury should not be given the drug.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the soldier accused of grisly Afghanistan murders of men, women and children on March 17, suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq in 2010 during his third combat tour. According to New York Times reporting, repeated combat tours also increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bales' wife, Karilyn Bales, broke her silence in an interview Sunday with NBC's Matt Lauer, airing on Monday's Today show. "It is unbelievable to me. I have no idea what happened, but he would not -- he loves children. He would not do that," she said in excerpts released Sunday.

On Jan. 17, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Jonathan Woodson ordered a review to make sure that troops were not getting the drug inappropriately. The task order from Woodson begins: "Some deploying Service members have been provided mefloquine for malaria prophylaxis without appropriate documentation in their medical records and without proper screening for contraindications."

On March 20, after the massacre, a follow-up order was sent to the southwest region that says troops in "deployed locations" may be improperly taking the drug.

“Some deployed service members may be prescribed mefloquine for malaria prophylaxis without appropriate documentation in their medical records and without proper screening for contraindications,” the order says.

Army and Pentagon officials would not say whether Bales took the drug, citing privacy rules. When asked if Woodson’s mefloquine review was a response to the massacre, the military in Afghanistan referred the question to the Army. Army officials said they were “unaware” of the review. After being shown the task order via email, they stopped responding. The Secretary of Defense Office referred questions to the Army -- and then back to medical officials in the secretary’s office. Those officials have not responded.

But the sudden violence and apparent cognitive problems related to the crime Bales is accused of mirrors other gruesome cases.

A former Army psychiatrist who was the top advocate for mental health at the Office of the Army Surgeon General recently voiced concern about Bales’ possible mefloquine exposure. “One obvious question to consider is whether he was on mefloquine (Lariam), an anti-malarial medication,” Elspeth Cameron Ritchie wrote this week in TIME’s “Battleland” blog, noting that the drug is still used in Afghanistan.

“This medication has been increasingly associated with neuropsychiatric side effects, including depression, psychosis, and suicidal ideation.”

In 2004 in the United Press International, this reporter and reporter Dan Olmsted chronicled use of the drug by six elite Army Special Forces soldiers who took mefloquine then committed suicide. (Suicide is relatively infrequent among Special Forces soldiers).

"You're ready to take that plunge into hurting someone or hurting and killing yourself, and it comes on unbelievably quickly,” said one Special Forces soldier diagnosed with permanent brain damage from Lariam. “It's just a sudden thought, it's the right thing to do. You'll get a mental picture, and it's in full color."

Also that year, the UPI report showed how mefloquine use was a factor in half of the suicides among troops in Iraq in 2003 -– and how suicides dropped by 50 percent after the Army stopped handing out the drug.

In 2004, the Army dropped charges against Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany, who was the first soldier since Vietnam charged with cowardice. Like Bales, Pogany faced a possible death sentence. But the Army dropped the charges after doctors determined that Pogany suffered from Lariam toxicity, which affected his behavior in Iraq.

In 2002, three elite soldiers, who took mefloquine in Afghanistan, returned to murder their wives and then commit suicide. Friends and neighbors described the soldiers’ behavior after taking the drug as incoherent, strange and angry.

Maj. Gary Kolb, spokesman for the Army's Special Operations Command, was skeptical when asked at the time if mefloquine could have played a role in the tragedies at Fort Bragg. "I think you are heading down the wrong road. That is just my personal opinion."

Bales’ attorney, John Henry Browne, has said his client has apparent mental health issues and is suffering with memory loss, among other things. A call to his office was not immediately returned.

UPDATE: 4:23 p.m., April 5 -- On April 2, TIME's Battleland Blog reported that Bales' attorney, John Henry Browne, "would not be surprised" if Bales took Lariam. "So far, DoD has apparently neither confirmed or denied that Bales took mefloquine, citing medical privacy concerns. But they already leaked that he had a TBI, and reported him as using alcohol the night before. This is more than medical privacy at this point, this is national security," wrote Elspeth Cameron Ritchie.

Later that day, PBS reported that Browne will request Bales' medical records from the military.

"We have to order his medical records, and they haven't given them to us yet," he said on Thursday. "He was taking medications, but we don't know whether it was aspirin, heart medicines. We don't know what it was."

Browne said that in some previous legal cases, he has cited the side effects of a prescribed drug in a client's defense.
"There are a lot of medicines that can backfire," Browne said. He pointed, in particular, to recent reports about Lariam, an anti-malarial medication.

CORRECTION -- A previous version of this story reported that Woodson's Lariam review was ordered nine days after the massacre. In fact, the initial review was ordered in January. After the massacre, on March 20, one part of the Army issued an urgent call to complete the Jan. 17 request from Woodson within six days. The Pentagon still will not say if Bales was wrongly given mefloquine.

Mark Benjamin is an investigative reporter based in Washington. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

[slybarbara]

02:46 PM on 05/12/2012

Larian was discarded a long time ago. Let's wait for the trial. Br. Browne will have a pail-full of excuses for Sgt Bales to have either been on the scene of the crime or NOT on the scene of the crime. You can't argue anything away out of the procedure of a trial.
SlyBarbara

[slybarbara]

06:21 PM on 03/31/2012

There is no proof that Sgt Bales was inoculated with Lariam, prior to the massacre. He does not remember having taken it. I'll take his word for it. I remember FLU shots I have taken; I would surely have remembered taking a controversial drug. Mr. Browne is grasping at straws, hoping to find evidence of its use in the Bayles medical records. It has been limited for use in patients with "brain trauma" by the Army since 2009 anyway.
SlyBarbara

[Harry Johnson Sr]

04:44 PM on 03/29/2012

1 in 6 in the military are currently on antidepressants that are also proven to increase acts of violence and suicide. Maybe you're looking at the wrong type of drug?

[Harry Johnson Sr]

04:42 PM on 03/29/2012

One in six in the military are also on antidepressants that are proven to increase acts of violence and suicide. Maybe the article is looking at the wrong drug as a cause?

[alien in jesusland]

05:43 PM on 03/28/2012

Lame excuses. Maybe we should check whether some of the 9/11 terrorists were under heavy doses of Lariam which would excuse their act ?
Imagine what would happen if a foreign soldier stationed in the US whould go out and kill a couple of kids? He would be allowed to fly back to his home country, right,
and then we would read a number of articles about how difficult it is to be a soldier and that his wife believes he could never do that?
Stop the BS, hand that guy to the afghans and let them do what has to be done.

[WashingtonDCsucks]

01:43 PM on 03/28/2012

Maj. Gary Kolb, spokesman for the Army's Special Operations Command appears to be another low IQ drooler that is in need of a padded room and heavy medication.

Why does the army allow such obviously stupid and ignorant people speak for them all the time? Or is that just the limit of their "Be all you can be?" .... Time to de-fund the pentagon psychopaths.

[Silvermaven]

12:31 PM on 03/28/2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRQ-NhEkLXU&feature=youtu.be
Fact is they don’t want to say that the Army was so stupid to give one lab the chore to make an Lymethrax vaccine knowing the public was massively infected with stealth gene swapping organisms. They cannot even tell you why all the Lyme patients suffer in silence trying to treat something they say is cured in 10 days.
War is hell.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-695X.2011.00916.x/full
One of the problems they haven’t even alluded to yet is like they describe here for the Wolbachia in the filiaria worm…
So you might kill the filaria worm but what you used to kill it might not kill the Dengue…The rainbow stew they have created to protect profits and keep silent the war for the destruction of the US will have US raising another flag soon in the 1 in 88 going to be reported for Autism.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030692
While Coxiella burnetti is known as the etiological agent of the Q-Fever responsible for recent outbreaks in Europe, an unnamed Coxiella species has been found in 100% of the individuals of Amblyomma americanum
They don’t know why they commit suicide and murder, or are sick, why would the ARMY admit they do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yOno_2m_8LY
They never bothered to treat or tell us the truth before—-

[lizr]

06:24 PM on 03/31/2012

could you please translate this post, I have a feeling it says things I might want to know about.

[Silvermaven]

10:36 AM on 05/14/2012

I am saying that the 1 in 29 of our kids who now suffer in the lies of Autism did not get it from tick bites. They got it from their parents and all could have been prevented except that was not the intended goal as we now see over 15 soldiers a day killing themselves, hundreds dying in their sleep, or falling over dead while Skypeing with their wife----and they refuse to say why---or treat the truth of the massives stealth prion protein epidemic that can all be treated to cure by killing all the infections in hiding and then stem cells to raise the gates of the immune system that vaccines have destroyed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRQ-NhEkLXU&feature=youtu.be
The worlds leading expert on Prion Synergy/AIDS/Lyme---it is all the same thing.
It is the cause of ALL SYNDROMES...

[KellyMBray]

01:43 AM on 05/15/2012

If she or he actually knew what they were talking about they might. It is a word salad of psuedo science.

[Aimhere126]

10:59 AM on 03/28/2012

I have used this drug twice in Africa while serving with the UN and EU-FOR no effect on me but both times seen people going mental after it one person was sent home. The other i saw with my own eyes sitting up in his bed slashing with a imaginary knife in his hand shouting i'm going to cut your f**ging head off. In a combat zone your brain will be working i'm sure at a different level where it may not effect you may effect others.

[willnerin]

11:28 PM on 03/27/2012

Mefloquine is a flouroquinolone drug. These drugs are toxic chemotherapeutic drugs and are given out like candy by physicians. The side effects are disabling and long term or lifetime for many. I my self experienced a horrific number of side effects physical mental and emotional that included auditory hallucinations that lasted for 4 months. The physical symptoms were far to many to list. These drugs are toxic to many and have a very high rate for suicide and psychosis.

[Doug Welch]

03:54 PM on 03/27/2012

This is a complete red herring in the Kandahar massacre. There is no conceivable way a single man missing half of a foot could march 2 km with a gas can and kill 17 Afghans; not on his own, not without orders. The US media has completely dismissed the multiple witness accounts of more than one US soldier involved. I smell a coverup. If Bales did this, he was not alone and probably working under orders.

[fran glass]

09:27 AM on 03/28/2012

i don't know about "working under orders", but i agree that he didn't act alone.

[aphextwin07]

03:23 PM on 03/27/2012

what a cop out! I took mefloquine for 10+ years living overseas in Africa and it has absolutely NONE of the side effects mentioned above. they're just trying to spin whatever lame excuse they can come up with in this case, I wonder what tomorrow's scapegoat will be.

[Nikki Cottrill]

08:11 PM on 04/03/2012

And if some people don't have allergic reactions to penicillin then there is no such thing as a penicillin allergy? The drug is well known to cause neurological reactions in some people. Some people can take it without any problem, but many people have reactions up to and including permanent brain damage. Just because it didn't affect you doesn't mean jack.
The NIH lists these as side effects of the drug: tingling in your fingers or toes, difficulty walking, seizures, shaking of arms or legs that you cannot control, nervousness or extreme worry, depression, changes in mood, panic attack, forgetfulness, confusion, hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist), violent behavior, losing touch with reality, feeling that others want to harm you, thoughts of hurting or killing yourself, rash.
Apparently the National Institutes of Health are in on the scam to make excuses for folks and are in cahoots with the top military folks who created guidelines limiting the use of the drug in people with pre-existing conditions that increase the likelihood of bad effects.

[blue-angel]

03:18 PM on 03/27/2012

I took mefloquine on four different occasions for about eight weeks each time when I went to Africa. I was told not to take it if I had an allergy to eggs, As a matter of fact, I have an allergy to egg whites, but not to yokes, When I asked about this, I was told that only an allergy to egg yokes is problematic, so I took the drug and had no side effects whatsoever. I was also told that it's okay to take mefloquine for a short period of time but it shouldn't be taken for a year or more. I'm not saying that this drug doesn't do bad things to people, especially if they take it for a long time, but based on my own experience, I would take ti again for a short period of time, given no other good alternative. One million people in Africa die each year from Malaria. I only share this as a personal anecdote. I don't recommend that anybody take this drug.

[Domingo Cardoza]

11:57 AM on 03/27/2012

What a shame. The army made me, and my platoon, take a lot of pills in Desert Storm.

They would line us up, dress right, dress; four squad deep, and tell us to reach for our canteen and by-the-numbers; that is with commands like: "With your right hand reach behind you for your cantee and hold it to your chest. With the left hand open the canteen and hold out your left hands, palms up" They would go down the formation and place 2 pills in each of our extended hands. "Place the pills in your mouth, and swallow the pills. Drink the whole canteen and don't stop until the canteen is empty. When you are done hold your canteen above your head and turn it upside down" that was done to make sure all the water was taken.

After that they said: "Let me tell you about the side effects"....they named about 10 side effects raging from stomach ache to miscarriage if you were a female and pregnant (I know, but it happened). After that I just didn't trust the mandatory pill popping.

our hand. The NCOs would place a pair of pills, and by the numbers, they would tell us to reach for

[Silvermaven]

10:40 AM on 05/14/2012

Why do you think the ARMY/NAVY gave the chore of Anthrax vaccine to just ONE LAB...LOL To be sure it had the desired effect and cover up their crimes.

[Silvermaven]

10:43 AM on 05/14/2012

They knew it would fold into the prion protein infections they already have====
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yOno_2m_8LY
And the same infections they now give to their kids. Those antigens do not GO anywhere. They have become the rainbow stew the masses now suffer in the ribbons that represent all the Syndromes of Unknown Origin.

[treasuredtrophie]

07:46 AM on 03/27/2012

So why can we not drug test welfare folks?

[WashingtonDCsucks]

01:47 PM on 03/28/2012

Because we live in the USA and don't let gestapo thugs rule our every moment.

Perhaps you would be much happier in Saudi Arabia, they like ruling over their slaves and dictating their every move. Sounds like you would be much happier with a nice snug collar and a chain!

[Jack Boats]

04:56 AM on 03/27/2012

Sounds exactly like what a commander would want to give soldiers before a NIGHT RAID!

[Chris CrumHieftje]

07:34 AM on 03/27/2012

If you have had that much brain damage you shouldn't be given a gun in a situation like that! WHO CLEARED THIS MAN? Don't forget if this happen in the US we would be outraged....

[Bertiz Benhamid]

01:35 PM on 04/16/2012

I couldn't have said it better myself thank you!