In addition to Parkinson's disease, Mirapex is also prescribed for a condition known as "restless leg syndrome." Dr Jay Van Gerpen, a neurologist and movement disorder specialist from Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, told Healthday Reporter at the time, that he wasn't surprised by this study's findings.

"Medicines for Parkinson's disease may elicit unwanted side effects relating to mood and personality," says Van Gerpen. "These medicines are extremely useful, but they may produce unwanted effects. Dopamine agonists can be associated with changes in personality, such as sexual inappropriateness, and changes in sleep cycles. Patients need to be aware of these possibilities," according to Healthday on August 11, 2003.

In August of 2003, the Stacy report hit the news and may have saved Joe Neglia's life. As soon as he learned the cause of his problem, he immediately stopped taking Mirapex and amazingly he stopped gambling within one week.

"I tried to lower the dose," Joe explained, "but the gambling restarted." Next he switched to a different dopamine agonist drug but the gambling started again.

In late February of 2004, he quit all dopamine agonists entirely, and has not gambled one red cent in nearly two years. "There is simply no compulsion to gamble anymore," he says.

"Only upon stopping the drug," Joe says, "did I return to my old, responsible self."

The gambling problem that developed out of nowhere always seemed bizarre to Joe, because from 1977-1980, he was on assignment in England and had easy access to all forms of gambling, including slot machines, and gambling seldom entered his mind.

"I probably gambled all of $20 over the three years I was there," he notes.

Despite studies reporting on this situation from 1999 onward, Joe says the drug makers sit on the sidelines and claim there is no link between the drug and compulsive behavior.

"Their favorite tactic," he reports, "has been to blame Parkinson's disease for this behavior, claiming it's not the drug itself."

"That's baloney," Joe says, "there have been countless cases demonstrating that when use of the drug is stopped, the behavior stops, end of story."

If anything, Joe says the problem is underreported, "because of the embarrassment factor."

Boehringer did revise the warning on the Mirapex package insert in 2005 to include compulsive behavior as a potential side effects claiming it has received "rare" reports since the drug was approved for use by the FDA in 1997.

However, in response to the latest study, the drug maker told UPI, "it was investigating the relationship "if any" between its drug and users developing compulsive behaviors."

Mirapex is one the top-selling Parkinson's drugs. The product had annual sales of approximately $244 million for the twelve months that ended in July 2005, according to sales data from IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.

How much money did Joe lose? He would rather not dwell on that point. "Lets just say I lost a lot of money," he says. "I am solvent again, but way behind of where I was pre-Mirapex," he adds.

This is where Jim Sweet's story varies a bit from Joe's. After gambling took over Jim's life, he ended up living out of his car most of the time, because he couldn't be trusted at home. "I would pawn any thing of value," Jim reports.

"I was like a drug addict trying to find my next fix," he says. "I didn't want to gamble, I needed to gamble," he adds.