A public-interest research and advocacy site · Australia · 2026

Unacknowledged
Casualties

The ADF Quinoline Drug Trials and the Families Left Behind

Between 1998 and 2002, approximately 3,000 members of the Australian Defence Force were administered mefloquine and tafenoquine during deployments to East Timor and Bougainville. In significant part, these were formal clinical drug trials. Both drugs are now recognised by regulatory agencies in Australia, the United States, and Europe as carrying substantial neuropsychiatric risk — including effects that may persist permanently.

The harms documented among affected veterans include paranoia, dissociation, psychosis, personality change, and suicide. They also include domestic violence. This site documents what that meant for the people who were not on deployment: the partners who came home to someone changed, and the children who grew up without an explanation.

All pages on this site are accessible through the directory below. Each section is self-contained and can be read independently. The site distinguishes throughout between established fact, plausible mechanism, documented case evidence, and areas of genuine uncertainty.

The Evidence

The Issue

What happened, who was harmed, and why it matters now. An overview of the drug trials, the scale of the harm, and what the Royal Commission did and did not address.

The Drugs: Scientific Background

The pharmacology of mefloquine and tafenoquine, the dosing conditions of the AMI trials, the FDA black box warning, the CYP2D6 vulnerability pathway, and the source transparency framework.

The Brain: Neurotoxicity and Domestic Violence Risk

How quinoline toxicity injures the limbic system, brainstem, and vestibular system — and why those injuries are biologically relevant to domestic violence risk. Includes the mefloquine intoxication syndrome and the evidential limits of what the science can currently claim.

PTSD or Neurotoxicity? The Misdiagnosis That Shaped a Generation

Why quinoline neurotoxicity was almost universally misdiagnosed as PTSD, how the two conditions overlap clinically, what the wrong diagnosis meant for treatment, and what has changed — and what has not — since the Royal Commission.

Documented Cases

What the case record shows, and what it does not. Fort Bragg 2002, the Canadian parliamentary record, the Australian coronial and DAEN record, and why the absence of a large case series is evidence of an investigative gap — not a small problem.

The International Record

How the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have responded — and where Australia's record is distinctive, and not to its credit. The universal gap that no country has yet closed.

The Household

The Household: Behavioural Patterns and Risk to Partners

The seven documented behavioural patterns associated with quinoline neurotoxicity that present direct risk to partners. The episodic nature of the risk and why intermittent harm is not lesser harm.

The Spouse: A Clinical and Social Profile

The long-term consequences for partners: chronic trauma, financial devastation, social isolation, the loss of children through family court, and lifelong health consequences. The harm that has no name in any system.

The Children: Growing Up in the Shadow of the Trials

Children as a distinct harm population: what they were exposed to, the confusion of episodic harm, witnessing their mother's injury, the children who later joined the ADF, and what they were never told.

The Institutions

System Failures: The Institutions That Did Not See Her

A structural analysis of how DVA and Defence, the Repatriation Medical Authority, domestic violence services, the family law system, and the criminal law system each currently fail — and why that failure is systemic rather than individual.

What Must Change: Findings and Recommendations

Seven findings and seven recommendations directed at specific institutions with the capacity to act — from formal recognition and a dedicated support program to legislative amendment creating the category of secondary casualty.

Resources

For Families

Written directly for partners, former partners, and children of affected veterans. You did not imagine it. This was not your fault. Support services and what to do if you need help now.

Media and Journalist Resources

Key facts for verification, underreported angles, and primary source access pathways for journalists, documentary makers, academics, and policy researchers.

Glossary

Definitions of key terms used throughout the site: ABI, AMI, black box warning, coercive control, CYP2D6, DVA, mefloquine intoxication syndrome, RMA, SOP, tafenoquine, and more.

About This Report

Methodology, source transparency, the four evidential registers, the causation framing, and how to download the full research report.

The questions this site asks about veterans have been asked, with growing urgency, for twenty years. The questions about their families have not yet been asked — let alone answered. This site argues that they must be.

If you are in immediate danger, call 000. For support services, see For Families.