A straight, married man and father claimed in court on Friday that a prescribed Parkinson’s disease drug turned him into a gay, cross-dressing sex addict.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Didier Jambart, 52, started to expose himself on the Internet and seek sexual encounters with other men - claiming the behaviour change also led to him being raped - after taking the GlaxoSmithKline drug ReQuip (Ropinirole) to combat his Parkinson’s disease in 2003.
Jambart appeared in court in the French city of Nantes on Friday, where he sought £390,000 in compensation from the pharmaceutical company for what he claims to be a “defective drug”.
He said, as reported by the Daily Mail: “After first taking the drugs I was bursting with energy, I would get up at four in the morning and run ten-and-a-half kilometers, but later, it went more than too far.”
Jambart claims the effects of the drug led him to attempt suicide eight times.
“My life was ruined”, he said. “My family and I were treated like we had the plague.”
“I have to take this matter to court – it may be a David and Goliath struggle but after all I’ve been through I want to get my dignity back,”
A warning appeared on the packaging for the drug from 2006, but lawyers for GlaxoSmithKline said previous knowledge of side effects did not suggest “any indication of the effects of Ropinirole”, despite admitting to the possibility of an “extremely rare reaction.”
More than 100 other patients have suffered similar effects from taking the drug according to Jacqueline Houdayer, the president of the French patients group CADUS. Last year Peter Shepherd a 60-year-old British man appeared in court after the Parkinson’s disease drug Cabergoline led him to spend £400,000 on a lavish lifestyle as a transvestite.
