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- Author, Noel Titheradge
- Author's title, BBC News, research specialist
When Sarah went up to her father's house, she was not prepared for what she was going to find.
His father, James, was a modest man who had worked his entire life in the same company and had pensioned about 20 years ago when Parkinson diagnosed.
He had controlled the tremors and equilibrium problems caused by the disease by taking a medication called Ropinirol.
But during the Covid-19 pandemic, Sarah had increasingly alarmed by her father's secretism and wanted to see what she had been using her time.
In the attic, he discovered lots of handwritten notes and a dozen recording devices that he had been using to spy on his own home.
In writings and recordings, he had documented the innocent sounds his wife made while moving around the house and while sleeping, to try to show that he had an adventure.
He had also cataloged the details of numerous chat lines and pornographic websites that he had been using obsessively.
When Sarah told her old mother what she had discovered, she was horrified when she learned that James had also sexually coerced her.
But it was only when Sarah took him to see his specialist nurse five years ago he learned that the medication his father took could have such extreme side effects.
“Oh, has become very libidinous, right?” Asked the nurse.
The couple now lives separated in their old age, because James is too big risk for his wife, says Sara. James lives in a specialized residence and Sarah affirms that they have told him that he has sexually assaulted the center staff.
“This medicine has destroyed my family,” says Sarah, whose name we have changed, just like his father's.
Sarah has a notarial power over her parents, which includes her medical treatment. According to her, she has carefully weighing the interests of both when deciding to tell the story of her family, but they want people to know the impact that medications can have.
Change in behavior
James's case is one of the 50 that have been communicated with the BBC, most of them related to men treated by movement disorders whose behavior changed dramatically after receiving a prescription of medicines from a specific family.
Often, the behavior changed after many years taking the medications in increasing doses, as men told us.
In March, the BBC revealed that doctors had not warned women to take the same type of medication for restless legs syndrome (SPI) could cause them a compulsive desire to find sexual relations and bet, which put them at personal risk and ruined their finances, their careers and their relationships.
Many of the cases of which we have had knowledge involve the exploitation of women and children. Among them are included:
- A man convicted of sexual crimes against minors after abusing a child
- An octogenarian who claims to have become addicted to pornography, including zoophilia and child abuse images
- A father of three children who affirmed that drugs caused him the need to have sex until seven times a day, which led him to leave two marriages when his partners could not satisfy him
The three men said they had no history of such sexual behavior before taking medications. They also said they felt a deep shame for their behavior, but believed that the medication helped them with their ailments.
Other men with whom the BBC spoke said they did not want to stop taking the drugs because they had led them to discover new sexual interests – which are legal and agreed – and because they enjoyed the increase of their libido.
A married grandfather of about 60 years has begun to transvest and has established online relations with men. Another man states that medications disinhibited homosexual feelings that he had not explored previously.
Recipe records show that some of the men with whom we spoke tried to reduce the dose, but they all considered that he had had a negative impact on their health.
Known risks
The ropinirol that James takes belongs to a family of medicines known as dopamine agonists, which are prescribed for Parkinson's, restless legs syndrome, pituitary tumors and other conditions.
The risk of side effects of impulsive behavior of dopamine agonist drugs has been known for a long time, but the BBC discovered that doctors in the United Kingdom still do not notice all patients who have been prescribed these medications for various conditions.
In March, the BBC revealed how the British pharmaceutical company GSK had discovered in 2003 a relationship between ropinirol and what it called “diverted” sexual behavior, including pedophilia.
GSK declared the BBC that he had shared these findings with the health authorities, had included this security warning in the medicine prospects and had carried out exhaustive tests with the drug, which has been prescribed in 17 million treatments.
However, warnings about this type of behavior were not included in the prospects until 2007 and, even now, they only specify as risks the “altered” sexual interest and the “excessive” or “augmented” libido.
It is necessary to immediately strengthen the security recommendations on the “toxic” side effects of the medicine, since its impact can be “devastating”, according to the presidential president of the Health Commission, the Labor Parliamentary Paulette Hamilton.
“Nine out of ten people do not read what is in those prospects,” he says.
“And if you read it, what does alteration of sexual interest mean? I have no idea.”
What studies say
The medications act imitating the effects of dopamine, a natural chemical that helps transmit messages in the brain, such as those that control the movement.
Dopamine is also known as the “happiness hormone” because it is activated when something produces pleasure or we feel rewarded.
Dopamine agonists can excessively stimulate those sensations, which helps people suffering from some movement disorders that may be caused by low levels of dopamine.
However, they can also reduce the appreciation of the consequences, which leads to impulsive behavior, according to academics.
The medicine can also worsen existing symptoms of restless legs, according to dozens of people who spoke with the BBC, sometimes causing an uncontrollable need to move other parts of the body.
This is a well -documented risk for those who take the medication for a prolonged period and is known as increases.
Image source, Getty Images
The BBC has also been aware of the concerns raised by two studies that analyzed the ability of another agonist drug of dopamine, rotigotine, to combat the worsening of health conditions.
Both studies were sponsored by the drug manufacturer, the Belgian company UCB.
We have been informed that high positions of the company repeatedly rejected the evidence of increases caused by rotigotin during the first study, conducted in 2012.
One of its authors, Dr. Diego García-Borreguero, affirms that UCB staff attended the meetings and discussed the results with academics. He says that the interference was “subtle”, but that the published results were not impartial.
The BBC also discovered that eight of the nine authors of a second study on the rotigotine conducted in 2017 had received payments at some time from UCB, and that five of them were direct employees of the company.
The conclusions of the report- which the rotigotine was effective to treat the increase- are “ridiculous”, according to Dr. Andy Berkowski, neurologist and co-author of clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of restless legs syndrome in the United States.
Berkowski states that the data show that more than 50 % of patients stopped taking the drug during the study, largely due to adverse effects or lack of efficiency, and that more than half of those who completed it needed an increase in the dose, possibly due to the worsening of their SPI symptoms.
UCB affirms that their studies were impartial, they underwent an independent peer review and that the authors who were their employees or those who had previous affiliations fully fulfilled the guidelines on the dissemination of conflicts of interest.
They also pointed out that the efficacy of rotigotine was demonstrated in multiple trials and that most patients who completed the 2017 study experienced significant clinical improvement. This corresponds to 37 of the 99 patients who began the study.
Secondary effects
Last year, head doctors in England prescribed almost 1.5 million agonist drugs of dopamine, according to published data to which the BBC had access.
Another drug, aripiprazole (a partial dopamine agonist used to treat mental health problems), is also known for causing impulsive behaviors.
It was prescribed in more than 1.7 million treatments only in England last year, often to young patients.
A patient who took the drug told us that his ludopathy had become so serious that he stole to finance his addiction. The mother of another patient believes that the medicine caused her child to be exhibited in public.
The Regulatory Agency for Medicines and Health Products in the United Kingdom (MHRA) says it does not plan to modify its warnings on the agonist drugs of dopamine.
Previously, he informed the BBC that sexual impulses vary and that a general warning on activities that can be harmful is included.
The Royal College of Head Medics (NICE) announced that its updated curriculum, used for the training of doctors and will be published next month, will now include the monitoring of the side effects of impulsive behavior in restless legs syndrome (SPI), which is estimated to affect between 6 % and 17 % of patients.
A side effect is considered “common” when only 1 % of people who take the medication, according to the NICE health guidance body.
The Department of Health and Social Assistance did not comment.
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