Back in 1993, teenager Shidane Arone was beaten to death by Canadian soldiers on a peacekeeping mission to Somalia after he was found trying to sneak onto a Canadian base.

This shameful act led to an inquiry, the disbanding of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, and charges against those involved. But during the inquiry and in its aftermath, veterans of the mission maintained that the killing might have been caused by psychiatric reactions to the anti-malaria drug mefloquine, which had been administered to the soldiers involved.

Despite that, the Canadian military still issues this drug to soldiers serving in malaria zones. It shouldn’t.

This week a report by members of a British parliamentary defence committee recommended that its military use mefloquine only as a “drug of last resort” because of the risk of severe psychological side effects.

The U.S. army restricted the drug in 2013 when the Food and Drug Administration warned of possible permanent side effects to the drug such as dizziness, insomnia and seizures, as well as psychiatric reactions including paranoia, depression and anxiety.

There have been other warnings. A 1999 auditor general’s report found the defence department improperly prescribed the drug during the Somalia deployment and failed to track soldiers’ side effects. And earlier this year Dr. Michele Brill Edwards, who was the federal government’s chief physician in charge of prescription drug approvals in 1992, said the Canadian government owed it to the 900 soldiers deployed to Somalia to admit that “mefloquine may have caused great harm.”

Indeed, some members of the military say the drug not only affected them while they were taking it, but for years afterwards.

We ask our military to put their lives on the line when they are deployed in combat or peacekeeping zones. The least we can do is protect them from serious potential side effects of an anti-malaria drug when other options are available. The Canadian military should stop issuing mefloquine.