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Yet another individual has filed a lawsuit against a Parkinson drug manufacturer, saying it caused him to become an addictive gambler.
Morton Wylie, a 72-year-old former police officer from the United Kingdom, agreed to take a guinea pig drug called Rotigotine in an effort to cure his Parkinson’s Disease. Instead, he became a compulsive gambler who lost his family’s savings.
Wylie is suing the doctor who placed Wylie on the trial, Dr Donald Grosset, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the city's Southern General Hospital, where it was conducted. Wylie is seeking £100,000 in damages.
His lawyers claims: "In the course of 2003, he developed an uncontrollable urge to gamble. He had never gambled to any significant degree before … occasionally playing the football coupons or buying a ticket for the National Lottery.
"His urge to gamble became worse. He concealed his addictive behaviour from his family. By 2005, his family had become aware of his gambling addiction, (but] he was reluctant to cease treatment with Rotigotine as it was effecting an improvement on the distressing symptoms associated with his Parkinson's disease.
"He spent his savings and then borrowed money to finance this continued gambling. That money remains to be paid."
Earlier in the week, a French father of two, Didier Jambart, 51, sued GlaxoSmithKline. He claimed that a drug they manufactured to help treat Parksinson’s disease instead caused him to engage in gay sex and gambling addiction.
Jambart says he tried to commit suicide on a number of occasions.
Lawyers for Jambart also contend their client became a gay sex addict, exposing himself on the Internet and cross-dressing as a woman.
Gambling911.com has long covered the possible connection between Parkinson’s Disease drugs and gambling addiction.
A Mayo Clinic study published in Archives of Neurology describes 11 Parkinson’s patients who developed the unusual problem while taking Mirapex or similar drugs between 2002 and 2004. Doctors have since identified 14 additional Mayo patients with the problem, said lead author Dr. M. Leann Dodd, a Mayo psychiatrist.
“It’s certainly enough for us to be cautious as we are using it,” Dodd said. “We wouldn’t want them to have some kind of financial ruin or difficulties that could be prevented.”
California attorney Daniel Kodam filed a lawsuit some years back on behalf of another individual claiming gambling addiction from Mirapex. Kodam said he had spoken with more than 200 Mirapex patients who developed compulsive behaviors, including excessive gambling, sex and shopping.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
