I know a guy that did some Peace Corps work in Africa back in the ’90s and was put on Lariam (mefloquine) to prevent malaria. He started having terrible nightmares and at one point began hallucinating that Zulu warriors were coming through the windows of his hut to attack him in his sleep. One night he was convinced that bone-in-the-nose cannibals were in his room and he woke everyone up with his screams. Since it was approved in 1989, reports of Lariam- associated psychosis have become commonplace.
The psychosis can be long-lasting and require prolonged hospitalization. F. Hoffmann LaRoche, the pharmaceutical company that marketed the drug, said only about 1 in 10,000 people were estimated to experience the worst side effects. But in 2001, a randomized double-blind study done in the Netherlands was published, showing that 67 percent of people who took the drug experienced one or more adverse effects, and 6 percent had side effects so severe they required medical attention. Mefloquine has been used as a defense argument in military murder trials (the military finally stopped requiring members to take Lariam in 2009).
