CBC News, Health Matters
Jan. 29, 2003  Watch the Larium Story

The world's malaria experts are meeting this week to try to settle a debate over which drug should be prescribed to fight malaria. Their main focus will be lariam. It works, but there's concern about the side effects. Here's what happened to one man. It was to be the vacation of a lifetime. Two years ago, this Montreal couple packed their lariam and set off on their honeymoon.

Michel says, "We started off in Hong Kong. Went to China. Then we went down to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and then Laos."

Mid-way through the trip, Michel started taking Lariam. Within two weeks, he was overwhelmingly sad.  He says, "I thought about suicide, for no reason, because the trip was going very well. It was sunny. Everybody was friendly. It was very nice country to visit. So I didn't understand why I would be thinking about that during my trip. "

Alarming for him and his wife Miriam.  She says she thought to herself, "Ok, there's nothing happened very bad. We didn't have fight together... and when he said I want to get end of my life... get suicide.  I say oh my god. I was very surprised."

There's no way to confirm Lariam caused Michel's depression. But that's what his doctor suspected. And Michel  says he felt better after going off the drug, "when i stopped gradually i didn't feel depressed anymore, after about a month."

Lariam protects against deadly malaria, but the drug can trigger severe psychiatric problems. When Canadian soldiers served in Somalia they were given Lariam. There were suspicions the drug caused paranoia, hallucinations and suicide; then, last year, more questions about the drug after a cluster of murders and suicides on an army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  A military report concluded the drug was an unlikely factor.

 Last fall, the manufacturer sent a letter to American doctors, advising the drug can cause "anxiety, paranoia, and depression...hallucinations and psychotic behavior,” and that  "rare cases of suicide have been reported."