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The source of this story is Bloomberg: http://tinyurl.com/bjtuf Pfizer's Mirapex Faulted in Gambling Addiction Suits (Update2) May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. were accused of distributing a drug for treating Parkinson's disease that turned some people into gambling addicts, in a lawsuit filed in Ontario Superior Court. The Canadian suit follows a similar complaint filed in September in federal court in the Central District of California. Both suits are seeking class action status. Several million U.S. residents take Mirapex for Parkinson's and other conditions, said attorney Daniel Kodam, who filed the California case. Mirapex, distributed in the U.S. by both companies and in Canada by a Boehringer unit, mimics the action of dopamine in the brain, he said. Lack of dopamine can lead to tremors and rigidity, he said. About 2.5 percent of Mirapex users develop a gambling addiction, Kodam said. ``These people have no history of gambling,'' said Darcy Merkur, a lawyer with Thomson, Rogers, who filed the Canadian suit Friday. ``They don't have a propensity to gamble.'' Bryant Haskins, a spokesman for New York-based Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, said the company hadn't had an opportunity to review the suit filed in Canada and was ``not in a position to respond directly to it.'' Haskins said Pfizer wasn't aware ``of evidence establishing a causal relationship between Mirapex and compulsive behavior.'' He said the company sent the U.S. Food and Drug Administration all reports it had received of such behavior ``in association with'' Mirapex. Gambling Link Haskins said Pfizer and Boehringer also added statements to Mirapex labels to inform health care professionals that ``there have been infrequent spontaneous post-marketing reports of compulsive behavior in patients who reportedly had received the medication.'' Ingelheim, Germany-based Boehringer, the world's biggest family-owned drug company, didn't respond to calls seeking comment. According to a study published in the Aug. 12, 2003, issue of ``Neurology,'' researchers concluded that high doses of some medications used to treat Parkinson's, including Mirapex, might lead to a gambling addition among some patients. Researchers at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson's Research Center in Phoenix examined data of almost 2,000 Parkinson's patients over the course of a year. Nine of the patients were diagnosed as pathological gamblers, and seven of them had started gambling within a month of an increase in the dosage of Mirapex or another Parkinson's drug they were taking. Gambling Losses Two patients lost more than $60,000, and none of them had a problem before taking the drugs, according to the study. Gerard Schick, a resident of Midland, Ontario, a city north of Toronto and near a government-approved Indian casino, lost about C$100,000 ($80,757) playing slot machines while taking Mirapex, Merkur said. Other Mirapex users who have come forward claimed to have lost as much as C$750,000, he said. Merkur is seeking C$50 million in punitive damages, plus an unspecified amount to cover the actual gambling losses incurred. He's also seeking C$3 million per person for pain and suffering, emotional hardship, and loss of earnings. Merkur said he expects more than 100 Canadians will be represented in the suit. In the California case, Kodam said he will meet with attorneys for the two companies prior to a scheduled June 23 hearing to amend the complaint and convert it to a class action. The Canadian case is Between Gerard Schick and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd., No. 05CV288851 CP, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Toronto. To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Schneider in Toronto at [log in to unmask] Last Updated: May 9, 2005 17:31 EDT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn