For America’s Birthday, Let’s Protect Our Troops from Legal Drugs

“The story of Lariam is a window into the world of pharmaceuticals, where the precautionary principle is ignored and dangerous drugs continue to be readily prescribed long after legitimate safety concerns have been raised,” writes PI’s executive director Larry Cohen in the lead article of the pre-July 4th edition of Nation of Change. The article discusses the sometimes severe psychiatric and behavioral disturbances that are common side effects of Lariam, a drug that has been used extensively by travelers and the military to prevent malaria.

In the article, Larry describes his personal experience suffering the psychological side effects of Larium (worse than malaria, he writes), discusses the terrible burden that Larium has put on the mental health of America’s military and others, and asks why some prescribing physicians know too little about this drug—especially since it has been associated increasingly with suicide and used successfully as a murder defense. He traces Lariam’s history, describing it as “like something out of an airport paperback conspiracy thriller.”

“The tragedy of the Lariam story is that alternatives have been available for over a decade," writes Larry. Read the whole story at Nation of Change now.