Help Us Collect U.S. and International Military Mefloquine Documentation
We are grateful to the many U.S. and international veterans who have shared documentation related to their use of mefloquine during their military service. These documents help us understand how mefloquine was used (and misused) on various deployments, and are critical to communicating with military and veterans’ health policy makers the need for screening for past mefloquine exposure, and the urgency of ensuring the safe use of other quinoline antimalarials, particularly as tafenoquine is considered for use in the U.S. military.
We are particularly interested in receiving documentation that shows use of mefloquine that deviates from the FDA-approved dosing schedule, such as the three day “loading dose” shown here used at the start of the post-9/11 wars. We are also interested in learning of examples of educational materials distributed with the drug, particularly those that might have improperly advised military personnel to continue use of the drug despite the onset of prodromal symptoms, such as anxiety, insomnia, or nightmares. Since mefloquine’s development, the manufacturer has warned of the need to discontinue the drug at the onset of certain psychiatric symptoms, and recently it has warned of the critical need to discontinue the drug at the onset of any psychiatric symptom, including nightmares, insomnia, and anxiety.
We are also interested in photographs of mefloquine that you obtained during your military service — for example, showing how your mefloquine was distributed. If you have any such mefloquine-related material that you would be willing to share, please email us. We will maintain your information and identity in confidence unless you would like us to share your story.
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We recently sent postcards to our U.S. and Canadian subscribers to thank them for confirming their subscription details. If you haven’t received a postcard yet, please take a moment to confirm your subscription with us. Even if you don’t want to receive the occasional postcard in the mail, please take a moment to update your other information, including your interest in quinism and the work of the foundation, and your continued permission to receive emails from us. Please rest assured that we not share our subscription list with outside organizations.
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With Less Than a Month to Go, We are Over Halfway to Reaching our 2018 AMSUS Meeting Fundraising Goal. Thank You!
The Quinism Foundation is raising funds to support giving a 50-minute talk on mefloquine poisoning to attendees of the upcoming meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS). The talk will teach DoD and VA clinicians in attendance how to screen for mefloquine exposure, and how to evaluate patients claiming chronic adverse effects from the drug. Providing critical education of this nature helps ensure that clinicians are able to provide quality care to mefloquine veterans, and earns the foundation considerable attention from DoD and VA leadership.
AMSUS does not pay any of the foundation’s expenses in traveling or registering for the conference to be able to give this talk. Your support can help ensure DoD and VA clinicians in attendance are able to learn from this important information, and that we are able to continue providing educational sessions such as this into the future.
With just under a month to go, we are over 1/2 of the way to reaching our fundraising goal. Please support this effort — the clinician that attends this talk may be your own!
The foundation is proud to be listed as a registered charity in the PayPal Giving Fund, on Amazon Smile, and in the Network for Good’s donor-advised fund. You can also read more about the foundation’s charitable activities by reviewing our listing on Guidestar.