One of Ours

...We were issued malaria pills yesterday. I remember a while ago when they were blaming the deaths in Fayetteville on malaria medicine. I honestly don't know whether there's any truth to that allegation. They took blood from all of us before the deployment to check if we could take the malaria medicine safely and apparently I'm good to go. I have to take one pill of chloroquin once a week. They had us read a packet describing the reasons for the pills and the possible side effects. Malaria will cause nausea, headaches, sweating and fevers. They said the possible side effects of the pills are nausea, headaches, stomach cramps and fever. Now, this just seems a bit odd to me, taking medicine that creates the same symptoms as the disease. I pointed this out to the medic but she just told me to take the pill with food to decrease the risk of symptoms and stop being a smartass.