A. Daniel Woska & Associates, P.C.

 

Requip linked to Compulsive Behavior

The side effects of drugs like Requip (dopamine agonists) have caused bankruptcies, broken marriages, depression and even suicide.  As a result, more than 300 lawsuits against the makers of these medications have been filed in courts around the country. 

 

     Over the years, researchers have been able to document a strong correlation between drugs like Requip and these problems.  In 2003, researchers at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona published a study that involved the monitoring of 1,800 Parkinson's patients over a one year period.  Of the 529 patients in the study who took another dopamine agonist, Mirapex, eight developed gambling addictions. For most patients, the gambling behavior improved after they stopped taking the medication.

     In July 2005, Mayo Clinic researchers reported more documented behavior that supported an association between Requip and other dopamine agonists with gambling addiction and compulsive behaviors. The report detailed 11 Parkinson's patients who developed gambling problems while taking Requip or similar drugs between 2002 and 2004.  After the study’s completion, the Mayo clinic researchers identified 14 additional patients with the problem.  Finally, results from the largest study ever to investigate the connection between compulsive behavior and dopamine agonists like Requip was presented at the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders conference in Chicago in 2008.  The study found that, out of 3,000 patients from 46 medical centers in the United States and Canada, 13 percent of those taking dopamine agonists suffered at least one of four serious behavioral addictions.

     The 2008 dopamine agonists study sent a strong warning to the medical community. In an article in The Chicago Tribune, some doctors said that they would no longer prescribe drugs like Requip.  Others said they were strongly warning their patients who used Requip and similar drugs to be on the lookout for signs that they might be developing compulsive behaviors.