THE TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN TACKLING BUREAUCRATIC INTRANSIGENCE – Bulletin Editor Ben English has championed veterans issues since assuming the role. This compassionate, insightful and powerful editorial deserves to be shared.
“WHEN Australia’s repatriation department was established after World War I, a fundamental principle in determining any benefits claim was when in doubt, the veteran should be given the benefit of that doubt.
In Townsville there is little doubt the anti-malarial drugs mefloquine, tafenoquine and primaquine can have long-term adverse health consequences for some individuals who have taken them.
That is why the Repatriation Medical Authority’s decision to categorically rule out a link between anti-malarial drugs and brain injury in ADF members appears to be, at best, a premature one. At worst, it is a decision that may well come back to haunt the RMA in the same manner as the Agent Orange scandal in the decades following Vietnam. Both mefloquine and tafenoquine were trialled on Townsville-based personnel deployed to East Timor and Bougainville at the turn of the century…”
