In recent months, several lawsuits have been filed in both state and federal court in response to the losses suffered by patients prescribed Mirapex.

Mirapex is the most commonly prescribed drug used to treat idiopathic Parkinson’s disease in the US. Mirapex has also been linked to pathologic gambling in some people who take the drug. It is designed to increase the body’s production of dopamine and control the signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Unfortunately, use of the medication can result in impulse control disorders like gambling. Every year 60,000 people are diagnosed with PD. More than half a million people have been diagnosed with PD since Mirapex gained FDA approval in July 1997.

According to some reports, drugs that relieve Parkinson’s symptoms may also trigger odd urges: jet skiing up the coast, collecting toys or gambling compulsively.

Like other Parkinson’s medicines, Mirapex can bolster the fading supply of a critical brain chemical called dopamine. But as many as 1 in 15 patients taking the drugs — potentially thousands of people — may have compulsive reactions, such as gambling.

Drug makers say they are monitoring reports but so far the rate of compulsions does not exceed that of the general population. One company chalked up complaints to coincidence.

I found this on the website of a firm of attorneys who has filed lawsuits on behalf of clients who allegedly developed a compulsive gambling disorder while on Mirapex:

According to a study by Mayo Clinic doctors released in July 2005, the drug Mirapex may cause compulsive gambling addictions. The Mayo study builds upon earlier research which suggested a link between dopamine agonist drugs, like Mirapex, and compulsive gambling. For example, a study published in 2003 by researchers at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona found increased pathological gambling in those being treated with high-dose dopamine agonist therapy, and in particular with Mirapex.

An unusually large number of patients taking Mirapex gambled themselves into debt, while patients taking other drugs did not, the team at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Centre at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, have reported.

Dr Mark Stacy and colleagues studied more than 1,800 Parkinson’s patients for a year. Of the 529 patients who got Mirapex, under the brand name Pramipexole, eight developed serious gambling addictions, Stacy and colleagues report in today’s issue of the journal Neurology.

“Seven men and two women were found to have gambling behaviour severe enough to cause financial hardship, and two patients reported losses greater than US$60,000,” the authors wrote.