Having watched a family go through the trauma of mirapex induced compulsive gambling, and knowing that the class action on this drug was restricted to the US I wondered what redress there is for those in other parts of the world where things are handled differently.

There are big questions in my mind about issues aroune negative effects of prescription drugs and resulting liability. For instance, large class actions in the US may result in withdrawal of drugs from the market or amended info sheets, but mostly the drug in question will continue to be marketed worldwide, nothing presupposes that such actions result in better education for clinicians. Further there is the issue of finding the resource to fight such actions - in many parts of the world such a case would fall at this first hurdle. The fact is that drug companies are able to muster much more resource than sick people.

Incidentally if it had not been for the PD community's openness about discussing compulsive behaviours related to PD medication the family concerned would not have known what was causing the problem. The pharma certainly wasn't letting on. Issues like these can destroy lives - there should be a place at which the buck stops.