Join Us This Weekend in Kingston, Ontario for the Mefloquine Veterans Conference

If you haven’t done so already, consider making plans now to attend the Mefloquine Veterans Conference, taking place in Kingston, Ontario, this weekend, Saturday, September 23rd through Sunday, September 24th.

Although not directly affiliated with The Quinism Foundation, Executive and Medical Director Dr. Nevin will be speaking at the conference beginning around noon on Saturday, September 23rd. Veterans and other interested participants will have an opportunity to meet with Dr. Nevin and ask questions during and following the event.
To learn more about the specifics, including conference location, recommended accommodations, and the complete weekend agenda, please reach out directly to the conference organizer, Marj Matchee, or visit the event’s Facebook page.

Congress Extends U.S. Military Funding Opportunity for Mefloquine Toxicity-Related Research for a Second Year

Following long-standing education and advocacy efforts by The Quinism Foundation in association with Veterans for Common Sense, and with the assistance of the Defense Health Research Consortium, Congress once again voted to extend the U.S. Military’s Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Funding of mefloquine toxicity-related research for a second year in its Fiscal Year 2023 budget, through the Toxic Exposures Research Program.

As described more fully in the press release announcing the Fiscal Year 2023 Toxic Exposures Research Program, Congress extended funding for research to “investigate mechanisms of adverse outcomes associated with exposure to novel compounds and/or prophylactic medications including, but not limited to, quinoline antimalarial drugs (e.g., mefloquine)”. Similar research was first funded in Fiscal Year 2022, following a long absence of mefloquine-related research in the Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Program.Prior to Fiscal Year 2022, a similar research topic area was included briefly, as “neurotoxicity of mefloquine” in Fiscal Year 2006 funding, but this funding not sustained in subsequent fiscal years.

The Quinism Foundation is delighted to see this funding continued, and encourages the U.S. Military and Congress to sustain this much-needed research opportunity in future funding announcements.

New Mefloquine Letter Published in Military Medicine

A new letter on the topic of mefloquine, titled “Valid Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Mefloquine Requires Measurement of Symptomatic Exposure” has been published in the prestigious journal Military Medicine.

Authored by The Quinism Foundation’s Executive and Medical Director, Dr. Remington Nevin, the letter highlights the methodological failures in many studies of long-term adverse effects of mefloquine, namely a failure to measure the biologically-relevant exposure of interest, or symptomatic mefloquine exposure.

As noted by Dr. Nevin in his letter, as those without such symptomatic exposure are at minimal risk for long-term adverse effects, a failure to measure and consider this biologically-relevant exposure of interest threatens the validity of mefloquine-related studies, including those considered in the recent National Academies review.