hrprof - I beg to differ. I've had patients that have taken Lariam (mefloquine) without problems. Ngaire herself has mentioned that she and Ken have taken Lariam without any side effects. It's highly individual and while I can understand deciding to take a medication because of fewer personal side effects or shorter course of treatment, I don't agree with our culture's propensity to believe that anything new must be better. In fact, this is the same battle that MDs fight on a daily basis with patients requesting the biggest/newest antibiotic on the block for their colds. With the shortened approval process by the FDA, more drugs are slipping through the approval process with long term effects that we're just realizing (remember the news about 1-2 years ago about the diabetic medication Rezulin which flew through FDA approval and was found to cause an unacceptable rate of hepatic toxicity?) Who knows what kind of effects that Malarone will have? And the bigger question is, if we start rouinely using Malarone as an anti-malarial, what are we going to do when Malarone-resistant malaria starts to emerge? (which it will for sure at some point in the future, mark my words)

Look at the pros and cons of all medications and decide for yourself as to which to take. Malarone may indeed be a better drug than Lariam but the data is far from being clear at this time as to which we should be using routinely as a PREVENTATIVE medication for malaria.

Masaki

PS: I'm getting off my soapbox now ... :)