France: Parkinson sufferer awarded €200,000 after medicine turned him into gay sex addict
A French court has upheld a compensation payment to a previously heterosexual man who became a gay sex addict after taking medication for Parkinsons.
The court in the northern city of Rennes upheld an earlier case that found father-of-two Didier Jambart had suffered side effects after being administered the GSK drug Requip in 2003. His compensation was raised from 117,000 Euros to 197,468 Euros.
Mr Jambart said that he tried to kill himself eight times after the drug turned him into a compulsive gay sex addict. The court heard how he had been regularly exposing himself on the internet, began cross dressing and risky sexual encounters led him to be raped.
Mr Jambart said his behaviour stopped completely when he stopped taking the Requip drug in 2005.
GSK only began warning those taking the drug of the potentially undesired side effect in 2006, but the court was told that it knew about the issue earlier.
Requip and other Parkinson’s drugs have been linked to obsessive and addictive behaviours before.
In 2010, Pete Shepherd, a former councillor from Hull, said he had become a gambling, sex-addicted cross dresser after taking Cabergoline for symptoms of Parkinsons’ disease.
