if you're just joining us a very warm welcome to you this is on he'd like to hear you had syrian opposition forces refused to give in to the government's latest amman and provide written guarantees they'll stop the violence has put the potential cease fire by the u.n. said deadline in jeopardy as damascus says it will not withdraw its troops unless the rebels do decide. controversy surrounding u.s. gun laws against momentum with the latest killing of an unarmed teenager triggering

accusations that lax and budgets lation has led to the homicide rates soaring in certain states critics say the right to bear arms primarily so no self defense for the interests of those producing and selling. those reports suggest the deadly plane crash in western siberia a week ago was cool why the cruise decision not to the plane the issue of the shortage of professional pilots in russia now crossing into the school. now we bring you our special report on how troops returning from duty in afghanistan i mean treated for depression with deadly consequences this is what's.

when i received the news for the army about my son supposedly commits suicide in

also or came to live on with a lot of from call for peace for a friend was a stay in the same days in the same group and the guns that. i know who is my son i know how to proceed sure you never commit suicide but there are means and yes. i think hundred percent in my personal and older friends family in general you know people real who who is my son he was my son. with in the army they covered up the other three for my personal opinion somewhere and kill myself he said to please americans who could have base in bagram afghanistan.

on july twelfth two thousand and four army reservist john torres was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head his body was discovered in a latrine at bagger merrifield in afghanistan where he'd been deployed for nearly a year twenty five years old and an eight year veteran of the army reserves john called his mother and girlfriend on saturday july tenth to tell them as units replacements arrived and then he would be home until weeks three days later his mother was notified of his death the military provided little information about john's death in the days leading up to his funeral his parents only learned his death was to be classified a suicide by reaching out to soldiers from his reserve unit where we kept finding out trying to find out what soldiers just came back or are coming back or who came

back early from his from his. platoon i guess and i got a number through elizabeth who was another one life you know where carol remember her name but she had a husband also in the military and she was saying oh i just found out there john died for my husband and she's the one who ultimately told me that that. her husband. nor france was would tell you this but she was very afraid by his last movie and told her this promotion but that he killed himself. oh i heard the first . thing to happen and now i heard it was there was an injury. on the releases and nobody knows anything more we can say anything more then we found out there was a conscious. thing knowing. that. you know. he

did it in the kind of hole from sea i.d.'s he did ask some people some questions of hide anything written a letter then they asked me a bunch of questions and we find that was. members of john's unit were told he committed suicide after receiving a dear john letter from elizabeth it was alleged that the letter of been found with his body parts to me personally. but i don't know one more thing why i wouldn't every group in there for him or anything would have his and i'm right here a lot of i don't think i would ever do that rumors continue to reach the family from soldiers returning from afghanistan in the weeks following john's funeral talk of a dear john letter gave way to speculation that he may have been killed for speaking out about heroin use of bag room jonna told his father months before that heroin was everywhere on days and the two members of his unit had been sent home for using the drug was a ploy after his death the family learned he was openly critical of the army's lack

of response to the heroin issue bolstering john's accusations was an article by investigative journalist seymour hersh in april of two thousand and four person reported that retired military and cia officials had told him there were increasing reports of heroin use by american military personnel in afghanistan with the use being highest among the reserve units according to one of her sources pentagon leadership was taking your head in the sand approach to the issue and had no desire to expose the problem or get law enforcement involved i want the most robust enough because i'm. not gonna let them go as weeks turned to months with no answers forthcoming from the military john's father took every opportunity to protest the son's death becoming a regular anti-war demonstrations throughout the country. so. the rest yes but i'm not going to study so if i harness all these vital history we

can mean many tell you about. this terrible here is a large crowd not a problem place on this inside a base. more . after the fall of the taliban it was an explosion in part of cultivation throughout the country poppy plants produce a latex is a source of opium which is used to produce heroin afghanistan currently produces ninety percent of the world's heroin with poppy cultivation in the drug production

accounting for over fifty percent of the country's g.d.p. . afghan hero one unlike the black tar variety produced elsewhere in the world is a powder and can be smoked in snorted as well as injected. just outside bagger miracles main gate is the backbone bizarre a series of dilapidated shops known by locals as a place to go to find american goods good stolen from base are treated the locals by soldiers looking for liquor drugs and other contraband. sometimes. when they want to buy something for example if they want to find the vydra biograph pills and some more things if they if there is not exist inside the base so they come out of the base and try from these shops or they give many for those afghans who are working inside for them and tell them to bring that stuff inside

the base for them. i spent significant time in and around the shops over several trips to afghanistan and one trip in april of two thousand and seven i contacted the bases public affairs officer and asked for comment on the issue of heroin a bag i was told there was nothing to comment on as the base did not have a drug problem after i mentioned that i'd spent the previous week in the bazaar outside the bases main gate i was provided with a written statement. our military police received very few reports of alcohol or drug issues here we expect that with a large mixed population composed of u.s. military forces civilian contractors department of defense a billions coalition military forces and afghan workers here on back room every day they would find a small amount of alcohol or drugs because of rigorous search procedures at our gates attempts to bring any contraband items through the gates are largely unsuccessful since january we have had about twenty attempts to bring illegal drugs

through the gate at baghran may or feel all committed by either local national or third country national truck drivers when we intercept these individuals they are investigated and banned from entering baghran again personnel leaving bag room are also subject to search. when they give money for an afghan friend to bring them here i mean so the afghan with my from somewhere hearing and then waiting in front of the gate for him and he's coming out of the gate getting that hearing by himself because if the afghans caught with feeling it's of a crime and he was he would face. the nation. of evidence. before this because the soldiers are changing time by time so there were some group of soldiers before that they were using a lot of these the hearing and the fascination these things. in the

end john's claims of heroin use on base were true but no point between the drug and his death could be found to the family continued on with their investigation. actually present. for you here. whipped up by. in march of two thousand and five john's mother susanna received a call from special agent steve hudson special agent hudson was an investigator from the army's criminal investigation division also known as the c. id. your daughter or somebody claiming to be your daughter. posted something to. the

internet this is he was murdered because of illegal drugs by officers lol that's what we hear too so there's a lot of stuff we hear and i know for sure he didn't he wasn't self-inflicted i know that for sure so i know there's something else and that's why we want to find out yeah. well based on. what i felt you know your i don't know that what jobs or what posts i'm not sure because he never talked to me about that because he say mom you worry too much so he never told me anything bad. i don't know if it's all to be he talked i didn't know that was new for me. well i would be interested if your daughter has information i mean i would love to look into that but what we do ok. if you can tell him that there are people more than happy to look at ok yeah we have all the names for like to say first when you talk to this first or this lawyer to see if i'm going to be able to get me out. i'll be fine you

know i don't care who gets in trouble me we're going to do you trust us or do us a pole but they're so scary i mean the cell just looked up to me there's a one scene and then they're scared about you know. what i guess i should ask what have you been told ok i just want to know what happened what happened to my father because. they're telling me without the play pen i'm not on the table i mean there's no way yeah no way. did it go you. medication he was taking it any. medication was you a thousand for his own luck contact something that you break. anything else. no they tell you were full. a medication he would take. was now our power call me through that he didn't tell me anything and i'm back. right here about bad luck and

keep. him. happy my culture and i don't want it but you know i don't want it and when i guess but i have a pretty good idea where it was he was taking ok. very. ill and as i prodded are about to back the anti-malaria drug referred to by agent hudson as mefloquine methyl quinn was developed by the us army and is distributed by roche pharmaceuticals under the brand name larry and larry and was the focus of intense media scrutiny in two thousand and two after three soldiers from fort bragg killed their wives and ultimately committed suicide after returning from afghanistan all three were reported to have taken lariam while the ploy in two thousand and three there was also reports of an increase in suicide among troops taking their him in iraq.

part of every military mission is giving the troops the protection they need including that is that to prevent disease including malaria which kills at least seven hundred thousand people around the world each year thousands of u.s. troops in iraq received one of these drugs a drug called lariam and it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick the question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about it's rare side effects serious and life changing side effects in collaboration with u.p.i. investigative reporter mark benjamin c.n.n.'s investigative unit has been working on this story. first got a log of the lariam issue in two thousand and two working with my partner dan almost at the wire service u.p.i. and dan had some friends who had taken lariam and had incredibly horrible reactions to the drug use in nations suicidal thoughts and tendencies. including one person who never really recovered

who has problems to this day and we'd never seen anything like that in reaction to a drug that ended up starting just our curiosity. started two years of work then in two thousand and two dan and i obtained about fifteen hundred pages of documents internal safety documents from roche pharmaceuticals first one was sort of was the company that manufactures lariam these internal safety documents showed the company quietly tracking reports of suicidal behavior among people who were taking a drug really really frightening stuff violent stuff. and their company was clearly quietly paying very close attention to people who were taking this drug and then and explicitly hurting themselves or other people when that's when you were really on to something. and two thousand and two the f.t. required gross to revise their packaging insert for lariam the new revised label

warned metal could make cause psychiatric symptoms in a number of patients ranging from exile eighty paranoia and depression to hallucinations and psychotic behavior and also warned that on occasions these symptoms have been reported to continue long after mefloquine has been stopped where cases of suicidal ideation and suicide have been reported the no relationship to drug administration has been confirmed. but then roche says. some patients taking lariam think about killing themselves so this is not a statement that some patients taking lariam have been reported to think about killing themselves or it's hypothesized that lariam may cause a patient to think about killing themselves roche is saying and this course has to be approved by the at the a. before this is allowed to be distributed by roche. some

patients taking lariam think about killing themselves so this is a statement by roche that patients can a suicidal thought on lariam it doesn't have but they then go on to say and there have been reports of suicide it is not known whether sponsible for these suicides well that's where i take. a difference with roche now i think that it's at this ingenuous statement because it's really quite clear from a number of sources that larry. can cause suicidal thoughts and suicides in february of two thousand and four then army surgeon general james peake testified before a house armed services subcommittee that no link had been found between lariam an army suicides john would be found dead less than four months later. i'm.

fifteen months after john's funeral the family finally received a copy of the army's investigation into his death the report was over five hundred pages long and contained a copy of the alleged suicide no. dear mom i'm sorry that i had to do this i've been in so much pain in the past year that i can't take it anymore the stomach and chest pains have been getting worse and no doctors been able to help me the doctors here refused to help me. please know that i'll finally get peace and with no more pain i wish i could have had a wife with elizabeth always pictured her being my wife and mother to my kids i love you all. the letter concludes see you all in heaven when your time comes i'm going to meet jesus christ. for the family the suicide note was proof the army was lying there were certainly john had not written the note that he

did not sound like him or look like his writing they also question why john would have killed himself over stomach and chest pain when he was said to return to houston in only a few weeks john was a successful accountant in civilian life and had good health insurance and substantial savings he could have sought out the best medical treatment available once home. also missing from the cia report provided to the family was an explanation of what may have been causing john stomaching chest pain and how this pain could have led to such a drastic response like suicide the only reference to what may have triggered his actions is found on page four sixty eight. about ten hundred twenty three juno five the underside of chain reviewed a mental health evaluation pertaining to specialist torres which was conducted by major psychologist two fifty fourth medical detachment camp lacy diagram airfield a review of the document showed major police specialist for suffering's id and

unresolved sematic pain which contributed to specialist tours committing suicide see mental health evaluation twenty three juno five for further details. the mental health evaluation was missing from the coffee of the cia the report provided to the family and there was no further explanation of what john was actually suffering from. by the second yes actually but in fact. ok i guess that's what you can hope can't i just i don't know what happened what happened to my family because. they're telling me what how things play and i'm not paid back i mean there's no way. no way . to tell you what kind of medication he was taking if any i medication why he was taken has or pakistan lack can't happen for that right.

beating up. know it hey we're very medication he would take. our now our power come me through that he didn't tell me anything about that. but i care about that and not come here. and think. about my culture and i don't want it but you know i don't want it i don't want to guess but i have a pretty good idea where it was he was taking ok. theory. and as i prodded our work back. despite special agent hudson's interest in what the family knew about the entire malaria drugs was taking lariam was only mentioned once in the report provided to the family and a statement to investigators jones' first lieutenant indicated everyone in the platoon was taking an anti-malaria pill once a week which he thought was lariam thank you you mentioned they're required to take it they are they're ordered to take it in the beginning you would have times where

friends on every monday soldiers were at formation would be required to take it so literally the soldiers would line up at formation and the platoon sergeant would hand out the lariam pills and everybody in formation with us after p.t. would take a pill music and they would document everyone took the pill so it was required it wasn't something you had an option not to do. but as a result there is no recourse and they would describe sometimes when they would take these pills like on mondays they would describe it as manic monday and so they all knew there was reactions to what they all had the experience seeing some people experienced less than others and others and some people had a very terrible reaction to it we're having a problem with lariam and it happens differently for different people the biggest problem for most people happen right around the third pill if you're going have a problem will often have it right around the third pillar don't ask me why that just happens to be for the people that i've interviewed will probably show up. you

know you're really having a lariam problem and two things happen the same time you have psychological side effects which can be extreme depression hallucinations panic attacks and then those come come along with a constellation of physical symptoms that also exhibit themselves at the same time so you've got the these panic attacks these hallucinations suicidal tendencies you get a rational have stomach problems you'll have some people complain of chest pain all these things happen all the same time we have this is a cool reaction and this mental reaction happening at the exact same time to somebody who previously and perfectly healthy and it all happens right around the third pill something's going on. for the first year and even after the first year your refused to give you answers whether this refusal to give you or that really made you think they were coming up with murder oh years. really truly in your mini

really colleen or the saw the military never give you something you were really up into a thought thought their year you know would alter any information and this is the the resume personally. so you can fly to of done with them in the very very dangerous area. looking for the investigation personal investigator well how can we be to. sell them tom and sam gagner. who happen to. sit on the iranian.

culture is that so much about taxpayers' money materialization it's been a lot of people at various a time finally come when we should value public aid of measurements of well being indices such as g.d.p. and other governments to. download the official t.f. location chobani phone the i pod touch from the i choose our. life on the go. video on demand copies mine comes and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. questions on the comb.

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