February 21, 2006 at 06:03:09

Mirapex - Two Victims - Same Horror Story

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By Evelyn Pringle (about the author) Page 3 of 4 page(s)

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"Only upon stopping the drug," Joe says, "did I return to my old, responsible self."

The gambling problem that developed out of nowhere always seemed bizarre to Joe, because from 1977-1980, he was on assignment in England and had easy access to all forms of gambling, including slot machines, and gambling seldom entered his mind.

"I probably gambled all of $20 over the three years I was there," he notes.

Despite studies reporting on this situation from 1999 onward, Joe says the drug makers sit on the sidelines and claim there is no link between the drug and compulsive behavior.

"Their favorite tactic," he reports, "has been to blame Parkinson's disease for this behavior, claiming it's not the drug itself."

"That's baloney," Joe says, "there have been countless cases demonstrating that when use of the drug is stopped, the behavior stops, end of story."

If anything, Joe says the problem is underreported, "because of the embarrassment factor."

Boehringer did revise the warning on the Mirapex package insert in 2005 to include compulsive behavior as a potential side effects claiming it has received "rare" reports since the drug was approved for use by the FDA in 1997.

However, in response to the latest study, the drug maker told UPI, "it was investigating the relationship "if any" between its drug and users developing compulsive behaviors."

Mirapex is one the top-selling Parkinson's drugs. The product had annual sales of approximately $244 million for the twelve months that ended in July 2005, according to sales data from IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.

How much money did Joe lose? He would rather not dwell on that point. "Lets just say I lost a lot of money," he says. "I am solvent again, but way behind of where I was pre-Mirapex," he adds.

This is where Jim Sweet's story varies a bit from Joe's. After gambling took over Jim's life, he ended up living out of his car most of the time, because he couldn't be trusted at home. "I would pawn any thing of value," Jim reports.

"I was like a drug addict trying to find my next fix," he says. "I didn't want to gamble, I needed to gamble," he adds.

He tried to stop by going to Gamblers Anonymous and counseling and even checked into psychiatric hospitals, but nothing helped.

Finally, at the end of his rope, in the fall of 2002, Jim spoke to a psychiatrist who was obviously familiar with the problem, because he told Jim he suspected a drug induced addiction caused by the Mirapex.

"He took me off the drug," Jim recalls, "and after the drug was out of my system, I stopped gambling."

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