Pentagon may study health link in slayings

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Pentagon is considering sending a medical team to investigate whether behavioral or physical problems might be involved in a series of domestic killings at Fort Bragg, an Army spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The review would include an examination of the Army's preferred antimalaria drug Lariam, which carries rare reported side effects that include agitation, depression and aggression.

The drug's manufacturer, Roche Laboratories Inc., acknowledges cases of suicide and suicidal thoughts have been reported, but says they are extremely rare.

"The incidence of adverse events reported to Roche represents only a small percentage of the more than 25-million people that have successfully used Lariam," said Roche spokesman Terence Hurley. He cited figures from the World Health Organization that put the incidence of serious neuropsychiatric effects attributed to Lariam at five in 100,000.

Three of the four Fort Bragg soldiers who investigators say killed their wives this summer were special operations troops who had been deployed to Afghanistan, where the risk of malaria is high. Army officials would not say if the men had taken Lariam.

Two soldiers killed themselves after killing their wives.

If the Army's Office of the Surgeon General decides to send an epidemiological team, it would visit Fort Bragg in the next few weeks, said Elaine Kanellis, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

While Lariam would be investigated, Kanellis said, "there's no reason to believe right now that Lariam affected the behavior of the individuals involved."

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