MacArthur, the Supreme Commander. MacArthur, who had himself suffered an attack of malaria back in 1904 (and a serious relapse the next year), created the Combined Advisory Committee on Tropical Medicine, Hygiene and Sanitation with Colonel Fairley as its chairman in March 1943. After its first meeting, Fairley met with MacArthur, who emphasised that he did not wish the committee to concern itself with matters of academic interest but to make concrete recommendations on essential medical matters. The committee proceeded to make a series of recommendations regarding training, discipline, equipment, procedures and priorities, which then went out as GHQ orders to all commands. Fairley's proposed use of atebrin as a prophylactic agent was accepted and Fairley switched the Australian Army over to using atebrin as a prophylaxis instead of quinine in March 1943. The most acute problem at this time was a shortage of atebrin. The Australian Army had only seven weeks' stock was on hand in March 1943 and US forces in both the South West Pacific and South Pacific Area were drawing on Australian Army stocks as they had not yet received adequate stocks of their own. The drug is also a dye, and had the known side effect of making the skin and eyeballs of the user go yellow in colour after repeated use but this was an acceptable drawback in wartime. Prolonged use could cause lichen planus and psychosis in rare cases, but atebrin still turned out to be much safer than quinine. Blackwater fever—which had a mortality rate of 25%—disappeared entirely. Fairley was acutely aware that much remained unknown about malaria. In particular, he was interested in the possibility that sulphaguanidine (or a related sulphonamide) might be a causal prophylactic against malaria, as they could be manufactured in Australia, unlike atebrin and plasmoquine. Fairley decided to establish a unit in Cairns to investigate malaria. The LHQ Medical Research Unit commenced work in June 1943. Fairley travelled to New Guinea at the end of June 1943 and arranged for Plasmodium falciparum cases to be evacuated to Cairns for treatment. As the flight time from Port Moresby to Cairns was only a few hours, this was considered safe, but since the disease can be fatal if not treated promptly, Fairley was concerned lest the cases be delayed for some reason. Movement Control suggested that a special priority be allocated to such cases, and Major General Frank Berryman