MCpl. Clayton Matchee in the early 90s. Photo courtesy flyingdust.net
A world expert and a group of veterans want Ottawa to be held accountable for the military misuse of a drug that may have influenced Clayton Matchee’s role in the Somalia Affair.
Matchee, a member of Flying Dust First Nation, was a soldier in the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993 who was involved in the gruesome beating death of a captive Somalian, 16-year-old Shidane Abukar Arone.
In the aftermath, Matchee was charged with second-degree murder and torture. Within days of his arrest, he suffered brain damage due to a suicide attempt and was subsequently deemed unfit to stand trial. Now, his Meadow Lake-area family cares for him.
Matchee’s involvement in the Somalia Affair has been documented in a 1,679-page report through Canada’s Somalia Inquiry.
However, possible psychotic symptoms of the anti-malarial drug his regiment was using have never been fully explored because the inquiry was shut down before related testimony was delivered.
A large body of research has since grown when it comes to the drug, called Mefloquine, which Dr. Remington Nevin believes warrants a reopening of the inquiry. Nevin is a Baltimore-based expert on the drug’s neuro-psychiatric effects.
“We know now, for example, that the rate of neuro-psychiatric symptoms among users of the drug is many hundreds-fold higher than what had been argued at the time,” he said.
Nevin said his research is conclusive about adverse reactions to Mefloquine.
“We know from studies that populations administered Mefloquine are more tense, more angry and more irritable. They’re more prone to severe anxiety and panic. And they experience quite a high rate of psychotic symptoms to include delusions, extreme paranoia and even hallucinations. And all of these symptoms can plausibly contribute to occasionally horrific acts of violence,” he said.
Seemingly small symptoms are a sign of possible Mefloquine toxicity in an individual, which Nevin said should lead to discontinued use of that drug.
In 1993, Matchee’s regiment was under a Mefloquine drug trial. The military did not follow the rules it had agreed to with Health Canada in use of the drug. Six years later, the Auditor General released a report saying National Defence “did not obtain consent from the personnel who received the drug, did not systematically monitor for efficacy, and did not provide to the study sponsor records of the drug’s administration or reports of adverse reactions to the drug.”
In reality, this meant members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia were handed a pill once a week and ordered to take it, said veteran Dave Bona. There was no screening with a doctor beforehand to talk about the many risk factors, and in fact, soldiers were unaware they were taking a drug that was not yet legal in Canada.
Both the UK and Australia have recently publicly admitted that thousands of soldiers were improperly prescribed the drug, but Canada’s government has done no such thing.
For John Dowe, who was witness to a few minutes of the fatal beating of Arone by Matchee and fellow soldier Kyle Brown, there’s no doubt that there’s a connection between Mefloquine and the events of that night.
“Clayton Matchee at the time was wildly swinging the baton at spiders that weren’t even in there. Like, he lost it. Because of him being distracted I was able to leave right away and Kyle came after me saying ‘John I don’t know what’s going on with me. This isn’t in my nature,’” Dowe recalled.
“I had witnessed psychosis and hallucination and disassociation.”
Both Bona and Dowe took Mefloquine at that time, and both say they suffer the neuro-psychiatric effects of Mefloquine toxicity to this day.
Dowe now works with Mefloquine Veteran’s Alliance (IM Valliance) in an effort to get the Canadian government to inform the public, especially veterans, of the effects of Mefloquine toxicity. Some effects are very similar to the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dowe added that the government should create a registry for the tens of thousands of Canadian veterans who were dispensed Mefloquine over the years, and offer compensation for those who have been impacted negatively. The registry and compensation process is currently in place in other countries.
The Somalia Affair and its impact on Clayton Matchee’s family have consumed Bona for years. He now lives in the St. Denis area.
“The Matchee family has borne the brunt of it. They have become pariah, outcasts, directly as the result of the actions their son took while he was under the effects of this drug. You know, that family has been ripped apart. It’s not fair, you know, no one has stood up for this family,” Bona said.
“Clayton Matchee and Shidane Arone are both victims of this failed drug trial by the Canadian Forces.”
While Nevin does not go as far as Bona and Dowe in saying Matchee’s actions were definitively a result of Mefloquine, he did say it is “plausible.”
In effect, Nevin said any investigations into violence perpetrated by someone believed to be on Mefloquine need to consider its effects.
Right now, Canada’s Armed Forced have three options of anti-malarials and Mefloquine is used for four to five per cent of soldiers. Canadian Forces Health Services physician Lieutenant Coronel Andrew Currie said they follow Health Canada and CATMAT recommendations which have been updated over the years.
Nevin, Bona and Dowe are calling for significant changes in military anti-malarial policy from the Government of Canada.
There is significant precedent to, at the least, make Mefloquine a drug of last resort in the military. In 2013, the United States’ FDA put a “black box label” on Mefloquine use and now “it’s been pushed to the back of the medicine cabinet” with only one per cent of troops taking it, Nevin said. This is significant to him because the drug was developed by the United States military.
This year a United Kingdom Commons Committee issued a report on military use of the drug, which is also called Lariam. The report recommends that the troops only use Lariam after all other anti-malarial options are exhausted.
Currie said there’s a difference between Canada and these countries when it comes to deploying, and noticing symptoms related to an adverse drug reaction.
“The risk for larger forces like the US, like the United Kingdom, even in Australia in certain aspects, when you have quick deployments of large numbers of people in the thousands, then your issues multiply. To date I think we’re better positioned in the Canadian Armed Forces to be able to deal with issues like that,” he said.
Groups like IM Valliance continue to seek meetings with high-level politicians in Canada. Dowe said he will continue to push the government to develop this story to its truest nature, instead of allowing the misinformation of the past 13 years to continue on.