A United States law firm has been hired to investigate if a link exists between the controversial anti-malaria drug Lariam made by Hoffmann-La Roche and the severe psychiatric problems suffered by hundreds of elite Australian soldiers.

Lariam is a popular malaria prevention drug prescribed to thousands of U.S. travelers and military personnel as well as soldiers in Australia and the UK. Lariam has been linked to serious psychiatric side effects including suicide, aggression and long-term mental problems. Here in the US, it has been the subject of an investigation by the US military, after two soldiers on the drug murdered their wives within weeks of returning home from the Middle East in 2002.

Hundreds of Australian soldiers, many of them elite commando troops based in Townsville, said they became violent, paranoid and suicidal after taking while serving in East Timor, the Law Office of Bagolie Friedman said on Friday in a press release.

“It appears from our initial investigation that Hoffmann-La Roche is negligent for manufacturing a drug they knew or should have known could cause depression, psychosis and suicide and failing to adequately test the drug to determine whether it had dangerous side effects,” Attorney Rickey Bagolie said. “Our judgment is that Lariam is a dangerous drug, and Roche has resisted proper warnings and label changes” Bagolie added.

(via PR Web)