A Minnesota federal jury on July 30 awarded a plaintiff and his wife $8.2 million for his claims that Mirapex caused him to become a compulsive gambler. Of that, $7.8 million were punitive damages against defendants Pfizer Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.
Why, two days later, haven't you seen this anywhere else? You got me, but if you're a reader of Mealey's Emerging Drugs & Devices, you got the bulletins July 31 and you'll get the full story in the next issue. The Mirapex verdict's only been picked up by two blogs: one which got it from us (and gave us credit, thank you!) and the second which got it from the one that got it from us. Time was when a story like this would be reported the next day by a local newspaper, then picked up by AP, then other wire services, then major papers then national broadcast outlets and all on the same day. It seems to be a reflection of the times: local newspapers are cutting reporters by the dozens; AP is a news cooperative, so when its "farm system" cuts back on news output, it gets less to report. In general, blogs are a poor substitute for news with a few notable exceptions, and the best are run by newspapers.
But back to the story at hand. The Mirapex trial was the first of two bellwether trials in the multidistrict litigation. The jury found that the Parkinson's drug was defective, that the defendants knew about the risks of impulsive behavior but failed to warn doctors and patients and that both caused the plaintiff to gamble and lose more than $200,000. According to the plaintiffs, gambling isn't a character flaw but has a pathological basis. Mirapex, they allege, acts on a part of the brain that responds to risk-taking, such as gambling. At least part of the defense is that the plaintiff had risk factors for impulsive gambling, including past gambling. I guess if any of us ever bought a lottery ticked or played a quarter on the "big six" at a block party, we have a gambling history.
Probably the biggest hurdle for the plaintiffs to overcome is why the plaintiff didn't start gambling compulsively until well after he started takign Mirapex and kept gambling well after he stopped the drug. Whatever the explanation, the jury sided with the plaintiff. Among other damages, he got his gambling losses back. The one "win" for the defendants: they found the plaintiff's wife 8 percent negligent.
The defendants have been strangely quiet about the verdict, but an appeal is a sure thing, just on the size of the punitive damages alone ($3.9 million per). We'll follow the appeal and keep you posted. Even if no one else does.