Blue,
I don't think we are actually in disagreement.
But we will beat up on the doctors until they join us!
I no longer question that those drugs can cause those things to happen, and more. But if it is true, I would like somebody to do a real study on it. I know it's only for Parkinson's and so the money isn't there - it's not an exciting disease and the public never see us when we are writhing on the floor in pain because we do that in privacy. But those studies are make-shift science, wobbly as the dickens.
And here is one possible reason we are being served third rate science: I have seen brilliant researchers working late into the night to fill in all the forms and endless reports that are required, and they can't afford a secretary, and most of the digging for information is done by graduate students helping out free of charge. So you shoot your idea out there, knowing you really don't have a hell of a lot to back it up. But not having the resources to settle the question one way or the other. Best to fire off a warning flare, which the Mayo did. I thank them for that.

I get most of my news in French and it loses in the translation. But up here, in the space of a couple of years, we have seen the percentage of Parkies becoming addicted to sex or gambling escalate from 3%, to 6%, to 8%, and the Mayo itself was at 13% just a few months ago, and now it is 20%, and that is considered to be an underestimate.
Of 1,500,000 Americans with PD, that's 300,000 people. If the studies are correct, and the percentage has been doubling again and again in a matter of a few years, then this is a fast-spreading pandemic requiring emergency nation-wide medical intervention.
But nothing happens.
So maybe it's not 20%. Or maybe it is 20% but most of the "compulsions" are not deadly. If you read the research paper, there is not much there. But the video sent out to the world by the Mayo states its clearly: destructive gambling and unacceptable sex. 20% or more.
If they are right, it requires a major medical response, nation-wide.
If they are wrong, they are causing harm to people who have to live with the stigma - jobs are lost, apartments are refused, because of the 20% risk factor.
So, whassup doc? They found what - 7 people?
No budget I suppose. But once again the whole world hears definitions of PD that don't seem to add up to the disease I am familiar with. We seem to be constantly debating some other disease that is also called Parkinson's, but which is not familiar to us.
I have had contact with about 300 Parkies. Certainly don't know them all well, but according to this Mayo study, 60 of them are destructive addicts, especially gambling and sex. And you know I don't see it in them. Am I that blind? Sixty of my gang are suffering this? And I don't see that at all. So if this pandemic is taken seriously, somebody had better send some medical help to the 60 people in my group who are afflicted by this, but I don't know who they are. I don't believe it is true. But I am asked about it all the time.

I think any drug that goes anywhere near our brains can do strange things. (We found that out at Woodstock). I know that some people were given a pill for their ill and not warned to watch themselves carefully for emotional or rational changes of behavior or mood. Most of us were told it is a disease not to worry about - it doesn't hurt and it doesn't kill you, they said, not wanting to worry us, and these candy pills are better than uppers.
I know some people got hurt real bad by not knowing what the hell had hit them; not expecting that a little pill would turn you temporarily into a different creature. I hope they get compensated, because in a way they were guinea pigs sacrificed for the rest of us; category in which the Amgen volunteers are a staggering example for the ages.
But I deal with a lot of PWP and so it matters whether the percentage is 1% or 3% or 20%+
If it is 20%+, drastic, immediate action is required. If 60 of my 300 are destroying themselves and others, I might end up being one of the others, right?
But we check the scientific study, and there's not much there. So I should not worry about it?
That professor on TV sure was talking about a pandemic.