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NANTES - A French court is set to award substantial damages to a father-of-two with Parkinson's disease who was ruled to have been turned into a gambler and thief, with compulsive homosexual urges, by the drugs he was being treated with.
Didier Jambart, 47, a French Defence Ministry employee, has been suing for damages of €400,000 ($752,000) after being prescribed with dopamine agonist drugs in a case that is being closely studied by lawyers representing Parkinson's sufferers in Britain, the United States and Canada.
Like Jambart, they claim they were provided with minimal information about the disturbing side effects, estimated to affect up to 15 per cent of those taking the drugs.
Jambart said: "I know of other dreadful examples here in France, including someone imprisoned as a result of their compulsive gambling, and of women who ended up prostituting themselves in mobile homes because of their sexual obsessions."
He ran up gambling debts of €130,000 while stealing from his family, friends and neighbours. He even sold toys belonging to his two sons.
Dopamine agonists, which mimic the chemical dopamine, are used in several branded drugs commonly prescribed for Parkinson's. In most cases, they successfully counter symptoms which include muscular tremors and slowness of movement.
But within a year of starting his medication, Jambart felt the first signs of "a state of Jekyll and Hyde". During the highs he began placing horse racing bets on the internet. But in December 2004, he made the first of three suicide attempts. The next year he began trawling gay internet sites for sexual partners. "As soon as we saw him we knew immediately it was dopamine agonists," said Philippe Damier, head of the neurology department at the Nantes CHU hospital.
Jambart was given different medication and his disorders disappeared.
Bids for compensation in Britain were launched last month by two Parkinson's sufferers who claimed to have become gambling addicts.
- Observer
