Don’t Take A Gamble With This Parkinson’s Drug

Several years ago I told you about Mr. Didier Jambard, a French man who sued the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) after taking a drug called Requip for Parkinson’s.

He said it caused him to lose thousands of pounds at online gambling sites, he also attempted suicide eight times, and developed a sex addiction.

More than you gambled on

I know this might sound like one of those frivolous lawsuits, but a year after Mr. Jambard took GSK to court, the Requip label got a new warning.

It warned about “increased sexual urges” and “unusual urges to gamble.” And not too long ago, GSK rewarded Mr. Jambard $250,000 in a bid to stop him from taking them to court over these embarrassing and far-flung claims.

In 2008, in another court a patient was awarded over $8 million for suffering from similar addictions – caused by the drug Mirapex.

In 2010 there was a big class action in Australia over these drug-induced sex and gambling compulsions.

The real kicker is that medical authorities have known about this “problem” for quite some time along with researchers at universities and hospitals all over.

Now, a new study has just come out looking at 10 years’ worth of data. It confirmed that not only are these side effects real, but that the risk isn’t as “rare” as Big Pharma wants you to think.

Dr. Thomas Moore, a senior scientist at the Institute of Safe Medication Practices, just completed a review of all that data. In a study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine last month, Moore says that the numbers of those affected are at “an astronomical rate, in terms of drug adverse event risk.”

He added that “astronomical” might be “conservative.”

Moore and his team are asking that medical authorities upgrade those “sex” and “gambling” mentions on the labels to be the kind people might actually see and read – to something like the American Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) infamous big black box warning.

Another doctor, one from Harvard Medical School, wrote an editorial supporting Dr. Moore’s study. He said that there’s a lot of “underreporting” since it’s “easy to imagine that a patient would be ashamed,” and a lot of people will keep their behaviour a secret.

When you realize how these drugs work, it makes sense that they can activate these kinds of sexual and gambling addictions – they interfere with dopamine.

Dopamine is responsible for many brain functions, but it’s best known for being associated with rewards and pleasure.

People with Parkinson’s disease have lower amounts of dopamine, and that’s what these medications were originally used for, since they can mimic how that chemical works in the brain.

But now, they’re commonly prescribed for such things as restless leg syndrome (RLS) and hormonal disorders – that’s right. Risky drugs meant for a serious disease used to treat RLS!

Even for a condition as severe as Parkinson’s, experts are warning that doctors have “overestimated the benefits and underestimated the risks” of taking these drugs.

If you have been prescribed one of these drugs (called dopamine agonists), you need to be aware of what they can do to you.

These side effects might be terribly embarrassing to admit to but, if it happens to you, remember it is just as much a drug side effect as nausea or headaches.

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Bear in mind all the material in this email alert is provided for information purposes only. We are not addressing anyone’s personal situation. Please consult with your own physician before acting on any recommendations contained herein.

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Sources:

“FDA panel: Champix boxed warning should stay” John Gever, October, 17, 2014, Medpage Today, medpagetoday.com