Abilify (aripiprazole) is a controversial drug and for good reason: while it is meant to help people who suffer from symptoms of schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, autistic disorder, and Tourette’s, it’s also causing patients to submit to addictive impulses regarding sex, compulsive eating, gambling, and shopping. While this may sound impossible or even extreme, there is respected scientific evidence that supports these claims.
Abilify was approved in 2002 by the FDA to treat schizophrenia. It’s known as an atypical antipsychotic or second generation psychotic. However, on May 3, 2016, the FDA published a safety communication in which it warned patients that they could experience “compulsive or uncontrollable urges to gamble, binge eat, shop, and have sex” while taking aripiprazole.According to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database, a total of 184 case reports indicate impulse-control problems and 164 of those cases involved gambling. These patients had no prior history of compulsive behavior and experienced these urges only after starting this antipsychotic treatment. The FDA explained that within days of reducing the dose or discontinuing aripiprazole, this destructive behavior stopped.
The British Journal of Psychiatry published a 2011 study that monitored three patients who used Abilify and then exhibited compulsive gambling behavior. Each patient was then taken off of Abilify and given another antidepressant. Within six months, none of these patients had gambling problems.In 2014, JAMA Internal Medicine published a study confirming the link between Abilify and impulse behavioral problems. Researchers studied the medical records of 1,580 patients who reported having impulsive behavioral issues and found substantial evidence linking the drug and gambling problems.Addictive Behaviors also published a study in 2014 that identified the connection between Abilify and compulsive gambling. French researchers monitored patients who were admitted into a clinic for gambling addiction and eight of these patients were taking Abilify. Researchers reported that those patients were able to control their gambling addiction after stopping or reducing their dosage of Abilify.
Abilify lawsuits have been filed that claim that the drug’s maker, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, and the company that marketed these pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, created a medication that was defectively designed and that failed to warn patients and doctors of the harmful potential for uncontrollable urges. For example, in the case of Nicholas T. Meyer vs Bristol-Myers Squibb, Meyer is suing the pharmaceutical company because they did not warn, educate, or inform Abilify patients and doctors in the United States about the risk of Abilify induced compulsive behaviors. (It is important to note that European patients were warned four years prior to U.S. patients about the potential for the risk of compulsive gambling.)
If you took Abilify and had a gambling addiction, you may be able to receive financial compensation if you:
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