Doubts Surface on Safety of Lariam: Malaria Wonder Drug Surface
By Paul Redfern
Africa News Service

	The medical profession in the United Kingdom is increasingly 
concerned over the anti-malarial drug Lariam after new findings show it 
can cause severe psychotic behavior and epileptic fits.
	Lariam, manufactured by Hoffmann-La Roche, was to be a wonder 
drug in the 1990s. Early trials showed it highly effective in protecting 
against malaria in areas where the parasite that causes the disease was 
becoming immune to drugs like chloroquine.
	Initial studies in 1993 said serious side-effects were minimal and 
that it was over 90 percent effective in protecting from  malaria.
	Now, following further clinical trials, the medical profession is not 
so sure.
	Britain's leading expert on the disease, Professor David Bradley 
from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the 
Sunday Times it was now hard to balance the chance of infection from 
chloroquine-resistant malaria against the risk of drug side effects.
	"We are really doing sums which have a high degree of 
uncertainty," Bradley said. "I find it extremely difficult to get the right 
balance. I do feel very concerned about people who get malaria and people 
who get side effects."
	"I have never said any drug was a safe drug...People should 
balance things carefully and get the best advice they can-and accept that 
nothing is 100 percent safe."
	The side effects from Lariam are, medical experts agree, only 
affecting a minority of users. But the number affected may be as much as 
one in 140. This has led to hundreds of complaints of serious medical 
problems from the drug since the early 1990s.
	Already, 46 Britons have issued writs against Hoffman-La Roche 
and 150 are in the process of doing so. Another 500 people have contacted 
their lawyers.
	The side effects from Lariam are severe and include epileptic 
attacks, severe depression, hallucination, chronic fatigue and even 
temporary insanity.
	When Eric Docker, a 50-year- old detective with the London 
Metropolitan Police visited Kenya in 1996, he took Lariam while at 
Treetops, a safari resort.
	"On the warning leaflet it says don't take Lariam if you suffer 
from epilepsy, but I don't," Docker said. "I was standing outside the 
hotel...then I don't remember anything else.
	"It was a dreadful sight," his wife Sandra said. "Eric collapsed. 
He was ashen, glazed-looking. I thought he was dying."
	The hotel doctor, Dr Ajay Chaniyara told the Sunday Times he 
believed Lariam was the cause and that he had seen at least a dozen similar 
cases in the past five years.
	Hoffman-La Roche maintain only a small minority of people 
taking the drug-around one in 10,000-have severe side effects. The 
company also says that adequate warnings of possible side effects are put 
on the packaging for the drug.