03/22/2020
This is a COPY & PASTE of a post by Jordan Campbell: This is NOT MY experience: Jordan Campbell is a friend of a good friend of mine.
Many of you know my story taking anti-malarial drugs, but I suspect most of you don’t… I’ve refrained from posting on social media about the dangers of taking Quinolone-based anti-malaria drugs for more than ten years. That changed Thursday when President Trump, and senior FDA officials, announced they were in discussions about employing Chloroquine—a highly controversial anti-malarial drug that was used during the Vietnam War—as a possible anti-viral agent to be used against the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This administration, and ALL past administrations [fyi: nothing politically motivated in this post] clearly have a very limited understanding of the dangerous side-effects of Chloroquine or the family of Quinolone anti-malarial drugs. Nonetheless, Chloroquine is being lauded as or a possible “game-changer” to help fight the Coronavirus, with clinical trials underway. Having suffered for nearly three decades from taking Mefloquine—the most notorious of all the Quinolone anti-malaria drugs—I feel a moral imperative to raise my voice as loud as possible now in hopes of stopping what might be a catastrophic mistake prescribing a Quinoline as a mass-prophylaxis to save us from COVID-19.
I took Mefloquine (Lariam) in 1992 during my first Himalayan climbing expedition, attempting a new route on 22,700 ft. Thalay Sagar in Northern India. Throughout the expedition, unaware of any connection to using Mefloquine, I experienced the drug’s [now] well-documented side effects of nausea, fatigue, anxiety, mania, paranoia, nightmares—all of which are prodromal to more serious neurotoxic and often deadly psychotic “events” for which the drug is notorious. Halfway through the expedition, climbing un-roped at 19,000 feet on exposed terrain, I experienced a complete psychotic break from reality, accompanied with disturbing, wild hallucinations and persecutory delusions. I also experienced what I’ll describe as an epic collapse of my nervous system, as though something had damaged my mitochondria forever. What I didn’t know at that time was the chemoprophylaxis of Mefloquine building up gradually over time in my bloodstream had become neurotoxic, breaking the blood-brain barrier and causing a brain injury that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Throughout the 1990’s and beyond, I suffered unexplainable, crushing fatigue, bizarre neurological and cognitive issues and an altogether mysterious malaise—a devastating illness that I wouldn’t hex on my worst enemy. I didn’t climb for years and at one point, I could barely walk around the block. Moreover, I quietly concealed depression, reckless and unexplainable suicidal explorations to simply end what I can only describe as an unthinkable physical, mental and emotional nightmare. Through the grand mystery of ‘what happened in India’ and the years of recovery after, I continued to chase the dream of climbing mountains around the world. Unaware that I had a brain injury, I took several more expeditions to extreme high altitude (in Nepal, Tibet, Peru) where in some perverse way I felt like the apocalypse of what I had experienced somehow all made sense.
In 2008, more than 16 + years after the expedition, I randomly stumbled on an NPR story about the U.S. soldier murder-suicides at Fort Bragg—all pointing to an anti-malarial drug named Lariam [Mefloquine] as a likely the cause—along with the drug’s list of dark side effects that described my life in the 1990’s to the letter. Like the thousands of soldiers serving in our post 9-11 wars, diplomats, Peace Corps volunteers and civilians traveling the world to malarial areas, one common theme surfaced: we were poisoned. As a writer and freelance journalist, I reported on the story for Climbing and Outside magazines and even secured a 3500-word exposé for a well-known New York publication about the dangerous administration of the Mefloquine to our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. I interviewed numerous veterans, victims, the pharmaceutical companies, doctors and clinicians and the FDA—I even interviewed officials at the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2012, the magazine killed my exposé—no surprise with a war weary public and a controversial ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ [like] story—but after years of whistleblowing on Mefloquine, I just had to push a way from the table.
I have now lived with this disease for 28 years (this April). Once called Mefloquine Neurotoxicity Syndrome, it’s now being officially and clinically accepted by the veteran, PTSD and military communities as an official disease called “Quinism.” There are countless stories about the neurotoxic dangers of Mefloquine and Quinolones found through Google searches; there is now even an advocacy non-profit organization, fortified by science and research, called The Quinism Foundation. With somewhat advancing age, I struggle daily with the neurological issues from being poisoned clear back in 1992. These issues include speech and swallowing problems, body shocks, foot dragging, extreme fatigue, respiratory problems and alarming blood oxygen saturation issues. I also deal with classic brain injury problems: headaches, cognition, confusion and memory loss. This has, no surprise, affected all areas of my life personally, professionally and of course my ability to pursue climbing and mountaineering, a timeless place I look to for balance, clarity and spiritual growth.
Today I’m sharing with you, with unimaginable humility and gratitude (yes, every day is a gift…) my very personal and dark climber’s tale as a public service announcement with one main message: Quinolones, a class anti-malarial drugs—are extremely dangerous. They affect a high percentage of people who take them—from Chloroquine, Mefloquine to a new generation called Tafenoquine. Quinolones have been administered to soldiers across the decades in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan—the side effects of poisoned soldiers mimicking PTSD—and an estimated 35million + people worldwide have taken Mefloquine. My opinion after 12+ years of investigation and research: using Quinoline drugs in any way is like playing Russian Roulette with your health: it doesn’t matter if you’re an elite Navy SEAL, Army Ranger or world-class athlete, a grandmother or a nine-year-old: your body is not above the drug when it goes neurotoxic in your bloodstream.
My decision to broadcast my story on social media today is my attempt to ‘jump in front of the bulldozer’ and to sound the alarm for those who may be asked or recommended to take Chloroquine for COVID-19. I recognize the administrations’ intention may be honorable to help the greater public good at this time, but if you’ve come this far reading I’ll only close by asking that you do your best to become educated about the side effects of Chloroquine, Mefloquine—and the entire family of Quinolone's—and know that Quinism is an irreversible disease that has silently affected millions of people around the world.
I will post more at another time but for now, thank you very much for reading. With gratitude – Ramro
“From my personal experience and my interviews with U.S. veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia many of us would rather die than ever take Mefloquine again. Its always been dangerous to take the drug prophylactically but taking for a life and death moment with COVID-19 is going to depend on each person's willingness to try it as chemotherapy. I just feel morally obligated to share what I know to be true. Check out https://quinism.org and read up. It's a good place to stand with our soldiers who served in our post 9-11 wars.”
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the agency is considering giving chloroquine to larger populations of coronavirus patients
