All right, everybody, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
And our next guest is Jason Leopold from over there at truthout.
That's truth-out.org.
And this one is from the 1st of December exclusive controversial drug given to all Guantanamo detainees akin to pharmacologic waterboarding.
What the hey, welcome back to the show Jason.
Hey, it's good to be back with you.
So what kind of pharmacological what now?
Well, this is actually a really controversial policy that was put into place and in January 2002 when detainees war on terror detainees were captured.
They were transferred to Guantanamo and there was a policy in place that they were given massive doses of controversial anti-malarial drug known as mefloquine.
The brand name of that drug is larium.
And you know, what's controversial about this Scott is that they were given the treatment dosage, you know, malaria larium mefloquine is, you know, the drug that's often prescribed for people who may be, you know, going overseas or you're going to countries where they could catch malaria, you know from mosquitoes, but what's different here is that or what I should say what's different in that case is that if you are going over into a you know, into another country, you went to your doctor.
They prescribe you this drug.
They would give you the prophylactic dosage, which is 250 milligrams.
And so the detainees who were transferred there.
They were actually given five times that amount and that is 1250 milligrams and the drug has been known even at prophylactic doses to cause severe severe neuropsychological side effects that last long after the drug is taken.
So yeah, but wait a minute.
I mean we're talking about you know, the the camp in the tropics where these guys get to sit around and eat lemon chicken and listen to rock and roll music and and the wonderful Cuban climate down there and they're treated better than any prisoners in America.
And besides, they're just trying to protect these guys from getting malaria, right?
Well, first of all, there's no malaria in Cuba.
No malaria in Cuba.
Okay, I didn't think so.
That's that's the first thing.
The second thing is is that what what the Defense Department did here is is absolutely unprecedented.
There has never been a case ever at all where a drug this particular drug has been what we would refer to as mass presumptive treatment.
There's never been mass presumptive treatment of this particular drug and they have the ability to conduct a laboratory test and they did Scott.
They actually conducted laboratory tests, but they did it after the fact.
So, you know, the question the question is why were they given giving the detainees five times the amount of mefloquine basically giving them the drug as if they already had malaria and you know, the Defense Department said first of all, I should say that they acknowledged it.
They acknowledge that this was a quote a decision was made.
They wouldn't say who made that decision, but they acknowledge a decision was made.
They acknowledge that, you know, the mass presumptive treatment was a policy that was in place.
And let me just say this a decade earlier.
Okay between 1991 and 1992.
There were thousands thousands of Haitian refugees who were actually brought over to Guantanamo and set up in camps over there.
And there was actually a real fear that they you know, we're we're you know, they're coming from a country where you know, there was malaria.
And in fact, there were 235 cases of the thousands of Haitians that were there in which they found malaria, but instead of doing mass presumptive treatment, okay in that case in the case of the Haitian refugees, they actually conducted laboratory tests first and those who individuals who had malaria were given a different drug called chloroquine.
So they actually treated, you know, the just like I said a decade earlier at Guantanamo people differently than they did, you know Muslim arguably, you know, you could say it was they were like refugees as well, even though that you know, whether we have we call them enemy combat.
So again, the you know, the question is why were they doing this and what we found in our investigative report is that there was a lot of research going on.
Well now hold on right there.
Hold on for a second.
I just want to recap this story here real quick.
And I like the the Haitian story as the controlled study and what have you here.
So you have this drug and we can talk about some of the side effects of this drug.
This is not messing around with the tablets aspirin here at all.
You say that if somebody goes to you know, Safari in Africa or whatever and they get a preventative dose of this drug.
It's much lower that these men at Guantanamo all detainees arriving at Guantanamo were given the treatment strength like you already have it strength goes and by the way, was there a lot of malaria in Afghanistan doesn't seem like a malaria kind of place.
There was some malaria there malaria endemic country, but but even then though you talk about how when the Haitian refugees were brought they actually tested them to see who has it right and then they gave him a different drug presumably one that is not so harmful, right?
And they exactly not so harmful.
It's safer and they had the ability Scott to conduct the laboratory test.
And here's the thing.
They did conduct the laboratory test in the standard in processing order form, which we found the Defense Department's own document.
The first thing on this standard in processing order form was giving them this drug between first they arrived immediately at Guantanamo the first thing that they did 750 milligrams of mefloquine 12 hours later another 500 milligrams.
Then they did a malaria smear and laboratory test and then treating them again with another drug a month later called primoquine.
Now this drug first of all has not only does it have severe side effects, but it has the side effects are exacerbated.
If you have a you know, a history of mental illness, they did not even you know, that they prescribe this without any regard any regard for you know, the detainees mental or medical and and mental history.
And you know, it all comes down to why did they choose this drug?
Okay, and that's actually a question that continues to linger out there.
We don't have the answer yet.
Well, I want to get back to your speculation about that.
We're almost up on the break here.
Sure.
So before we get to that question, we'll have time to get into that.
But I was wondering if you could tell me who is Dr.
G.
Richard Olds.
Oh, yes, Dr.
G.
Richard Olds.
He's one of the world's foremost experts on on tropical medicine and tropical disease specialists.
He's the founding Dean of the Medical School at the University of California at Riverside an expert on malaria on the anti-malarial drugs.
And he said in his professional opinion, there's absolutely no medical justification for giving a massive dose of mefloquine to an asymptomatic individual.
There's just it's clinically indefensible.
So at death, as one of the other experts, an army major and public health physician said, this was an egregious malpractice at death.
But the detainees who were given this drug, perhaps hundreds of them were subjected to side effects as bad as the, you know, what he referred to as the enhanced interrogation technique.
Wow, and we all know what that means.
All right.
There's a lot more to this piece.
Controversial drug given to all Guantanamo detainees akin to pharmacologic waterboarding at truth-out.org.
It's Jason Leopold and we'll be right back.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Jason Leopold from truthout.org and you don't need the dash.
Just truthout.org.
It'll forge you right on there.
And by the way, if you were to go to your favorite search engine and write site colon anti-war.com and then space Leopold, you can find some really great stuff about the neocons from back in the days there.
Now Jason, this story is just tripping me out.
I can hardly believe it.
It's called exclusive controversial drug given to all Guantanamo detainees again to pharmacologic waterboarding.
You're talking about treatment strength doses of an extremely powerful anti-malaria drug given to everyone.
Every enemy combatant brought to Guantanamo Bay.
And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how powerful this drug is in terms of its side effects and so forth.
There's a paragraph or two in this article that pretty shocking.
Yeah.
Well, you know, first of all the you know, like I said, the drug is incredibly powerful in the sense that it immediately for some individuals.
And like I said for, you know, for individuals who have a history of mental illness.
It causes anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, it's nausea, anxiety.
It's there's such a long list Scott of you know, of what this drug can do.
And in fact in the year the same year that this drug was being given to detainees in January 2002 and you know, we know that detainees were continuously brought through to Guantanamo over the years.
That year the manufacturer of this drug Roche ROCHE who by the way, just as a side note is the same company that Donald Rumsfeld sold Tamiflu to.
They had issued a new warning that year in September of 2002 and this warning they issued two new warning paragraphs and the paragraph phase said that some of the symptoms associated with Tamiflu including suicidal thoughts and suicide and also quote may cause psychiatric symptoms in a number of patients ranging from anxiety, paranoia and depression to hallucination and psychotic behavior which have been reported to continue long after Tamiflu has been stopped.
So this is a drug that you take it you risk getting some serious side effects and in addition to the detainees they were giving this also to US soldiers and in fact this drug has been linked to some major atrocities that you know that happened over back in I believe it's 2002 over Fort Bragg where some US soldiers killed their wives.
There was a US soldier back in 2008 who I think people may really remember the spate of domestic violence at Fort Bragg you're saying that was connected to this drug.
That was yes, absolutely.
And in fact, it's pretty much been established and back in 2008 a US soldier killed himself.
And that was that too was linked to this drug.
His name is Juan Torres big story about him in the Washington Post back in 2008, you know, in addition there's a vet I've spoken to on these people are only getting the preventive dose not the full-scale dose.
Correct.
They're just the preventive dose and you know in 2002 when detainees were being brought to Guantanamo there was a rash of you know suicidal suicide attempt at the facility now let me just say that you know, they're also were in you know, horrible confinement conditions.
The Geneva Conventions have been stripped there from the from them and they weren't even given prisoner of war status.
They were you know, enemy combined.
They have actually had no no protections in place.
Well, virtually all of them were suffering one degree or another of outright torture as well, right?
And you know, we do know that we know that they you know, our government really look to break down the detainees psychologically break them down to get them under control in order to elicit false confession.
Okay, so once again, it just raises questions as to whether this drug had was linked to any of those suicide attempts at the facility at the prison facility.
And and I should also add that in the same year the Defense Department stopped reporting, you know, suicide attempt.
Well, you know, I was just talking with the other Scott Horton the heroic international human rights anti-torture lawyer from Harper's magazine about the al-Masri case on the show yesterday and he was saying that you know Masri said when they took him to the salt pit.
This was the innocent grocer who was extraordinarily renditioned to the salt pit in Afghanistan and he claimed that he had been shot up with psychotropic drugs many times and apparently that part of the story was validated verified by the doctors back in the West when he was finally let go they did hair samples and found some sort of type of psychotropic drugs in his system in that way.
And I just wonder maybe this is the same thing they're talking about that they're just using this they get to call it anti-malaria drug, you know as cover but what they're really doing is driving people mad with it.
Yes, and I think that you know, I should go back and say this that last year the Defense Department inspector general have finished a an investigation into the use of psychotropic drugs for the purposes of interrogation and that report remains classified.
Now, I was unable to to get any information as to what the report says what the drugs that allegedly were used but you know, the one thing that I was able to to get is a sort of a self-serving statement from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which said that they were unable to substantiate those allegations.
So again, you know, it's self-serving we have to take their word for it, but there have been many many many stories from former detainees who said that they were, you know, pricked and prodded with needles and they had no idea what they were taking and you know in this instance with this particular drug.
The question is is why mass presumptive treatment who made the decision?
It's a drug that by the way comes from a family of drugs called quinolone that have a history as part of the CIA's MK Ultra program mind control program.
It comes from that family.
So it was part of that, you know part of that study.
It was a drug.
This was a drug developed at Walter Reed and you know licensed to you know, the pharmaceutical company Roche and you know brought on to the market some years later.
In fact, it makes me wonder.
I mean, what's the worst part of this story?
This is the same stuff.
They give our soldiers is the stuff that they give the so called bad guys that they round up.
Right?
Well, you know, yeah, and I think that there you know, there have been many people out there who said oh, I have no problems with it.
But there are many many other stories.
That were people who are again, just taking the prophylactic dose, you know, some of the first things they experience are these incredibly vivid vivid dream.
You know, they start to hallucinate and it's what they describe truly sounds like they're tripping.
You know, they're tripping on you know, the what the equivalent of LSD would be like.
Well, yeah, and you know, if you're in 10th grade and having a good time with your friends sneaking out at night and whatever that's one thing but somebody gives you acid against your will.
That's not a very good time.
Exactly.
And you know, and that's actually another important point.
So the Defense Department or during the time they were giving this drug out.
There was actually a meeting that was taking place with the Defense Department officials the same month, you know that the detainees were stripped of their legal rights under the Geneva Convention prisoner of war status and they you know, there was a meeting in which methlaquine was or rather malaria issues were discussed at Guantanamo.
This drug never came up.
Actually the the drug primaquine came up.
There was discussions about malaria in general, but it was not spoken about as if there was any any threat in September the same month that Roche changed the warning labels.
There was a letter that went to the House Armed Services Committee.
Again, no discussion about the fact that this was a drug that was being given to detainees and there was a document, you know, which is attached and linked to in this story, which states that methlaquine or rather malaria is not a threat at Guantanamo Bay.
Wow, man.
I got to tell you guys, please go read this article.
This is incredible.
Go beat your Republican friends over the head with this one.
It's called exclusive controversial drug given to all Guantanamo detainees akin to pharmacologic waterboarding at truthout.org by Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye.
Thank you very much for your time.
Appreciate it.
Thanks.
