mefloquine mefloquine was developed by the us army and is distributed by roche pharmaceuticals under the brand name lariam lariam 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 deployed in two thousand and three there was also reports of an increase in suicide among troops taking their eamonn iraq. part of every military mission is giving the troops the protection they need including medicines 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 its rare side effects serious life changing side effects in collaboration with u.p.i. investigative reporter mark benjamin cnn's investigative unit has been working on this story. first can logon 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 a reaction to a drug and 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 bush pharmaceuticals the company that manufactures lariam these internal safety documents showed the company quietly tracking reports of suicidal behavior among people who were taking the drug really really frightening stuff violent stuff. and that company was clearly quietly paying very close attention to people who were taking this drug and then inexplicably hurting themselves or other people and that's when we knew we were really on to something. can two thousand and two the f.d.a. required roche to revise their packaging insert for lariam the new revised label warned mefloquine may cause psychiatric symptoms in a number of patients ranging from exile eighty paranoia and depression to hallucinations and psychotic behavior it also warned that on occasions these symptoms have been reported to continue long after mefloquine has been stopped rare 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 f.d.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 but they then go on to say and there have been reports of su