You've heard of drugs to treat addiction. But could a drug cause an addiction? A retired Wall Streeter is claiming Mirapex, Boehringer Ingelheim's med for Parkinson's disease, did just that. The man has filed suit alleging that Mirapex made him into a "pathological" gambler. His addiction drove him to lose some $3 million, he says. "It ruined me," the New York Daily News quotes. "I became like a robot."
Now, Boehringer updated Mirapex's label in 2005 to include reports of "compulsive behavior" among Mirapex patients. And this patient isn't the first gambling addict to sue the company. But the company firmly denies any scientific evidence that proves a tie to gambling.
The new suit claims that Boehringer should have done more to warn patients of the potential for compulsive gambling. According to the suit, the man started taking Mirapex in 2002 but didn't learn about the label change until 2006, when he read a news story about a film director who blamed a gambling binge on the drug. But by then, he claims, he was already out of control and unable to resist the urge to visit the casinos. He even plundered his kids' bank accounts to feed his habit.
- read the Daily News story