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Former Airborne soldiers like Claude Lalancette previously blamed Matchee for the beating death that helped lead to the disbanding of the Airborne regiment.

Lalancette changed his mind after learning of new research into the side effects of mefloquine, which include heightened aggression, paranoia, anxiety and vivid dreams.

“I feel shame because I put blame on Clayton Matchee and (Edmonton soldier) Kyle Brown,” Lalancette told the veterans affairs committee. (Brown spent four years in jail for his role in the beating death.)

“We should reach out to the victims of this pill and the first two would be Kyle Brown and the Matchee family,” Lalancette said.

In 1992-93, the 900 Canadian Airborne soldiers were among the very first Canadians to take mefloquine as part of a clinical drug trial run by the Canadian army. The side effects were not well understood or explained to soldiers.

That’s why the Matchee case should be reopened, said Dr. Remington Nevin, the leading U.S. expert on mefloquine’s neuropsychiatric side effects.

“I feel confident I can render an opinion as to whether his behaviour during that time may have been in some way affected by the drug,” Nevin told the MPs on the committee.

Given the new research into the drug, “many of the points of confusion that dominated discussion then no longer apply,” he said.

“We could come to a more solid mutual conclusion about the events of that day and the role of the drug in his particular case,” Nevin told the committee.