Group Actions

Hilary Meredith Solicitors is acting for service personnel and veterans who have suffered physical and psychological side effects having been given the anti-malaria drug Lariam.

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According to MoD figures, a minimum of 17,368 armed forces personnel were prescribed Lariam at least once between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2015.

Having been developed in the US following the Vietnam War, Lariam was made available in the UK in 1989 and was quickly adopted by the British Armed Forces as its antimalarial drug of choice.

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Consumers of Lariam, both inside and outside the forces, soon reported adverse effects of a neuropsychiatric nature leading to regulatory intervention at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the British National Formulary (BNF).

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Soon after Lariam was brought to international markets in late 1980s, users began to experience shocking side-effects.  Yet over the coming decades, as the drug became implicated in ever-increasing acts of unexplained violence, homicide and suicide, the MoD continued to force Lariam on thousands of unsuspecting troops deployed to some of the world’s most dangerous places.

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Our team has secured a number of major admissions from the MoD - including that the MoD breached its duty of care by inappropriately providing Lariam to deployed troops, a major turning point in the case.