Vet's lawsuit blaming antimalarial drug for psychosis tossed
A lawsuit against the maker of an anti-malarial drug blamed for causing psychotic and neurological damage in U.S. servicemembers has been thrown out
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit against the maker of an anti-malarial drug blamed for causing psychotic behavior and neurological damage to U.S. servicemembers, ruling that the case had no right to be filed in California.
The proposed class-action case brought last year by an Army veteran accused Roche Laboratories Inc. and Genentech Inc. of intentionally misleading the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of mefloquine, the generic version of the drug Lariam.
Similar cases had been brought in Canada and Australia, but the lawsuit in federal court in Northern California was the first large-scale case of its kind in the U.S., attorneys said.
The U.S. military, which developed the drug during the Vietnam War, was once its largest user to combat malaria. It was given to hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Afghanistan and Somalia.
