Plaintiff Stacy W. has filed a product liability lawsuit in Florida federal court against the manufacturers of Abilify, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., alleging that she suffered a gambling addition from taking Abilify.

According to the lawsuit, Stacy alleges that she suffered from compulsive behavior in the form of a gambling addiction due to her taking the medication.

Stacy maintains that she was taking Abilify from September 2005 until December 2015.

The gambling addiction lawsuit states that due to “plaintiffs use of Abilify, plaintiff developed compulsive behaviors, including, but not limited to, gambling.” The defendants face a number of counts as maintained in the gambling addition lawsuit.

The lawsuit is claiming the following breaches against the manufacturers: Strict Liability; Breach of Express Warranty; Breach of Implied Warranty; Negligence; Negligence Per Se; Negligent Misrepresentation; Violation of Consumer Protection Law; Fraudulent Concealment; and Punitive Damages.

Abilify and Alleged Gambling Addiction Link

According to the Abilify gambling addiction lawsuit, the drug’s manufacturers failed to warn consumers of the compulsive gambling effects that the drug has on patients. Many patients who have suffered from compulsive behavior injuries from the medication have filed lawsuit in hopes of retrieving some relief for their losses.

Until recently, Abilify’s warning label had not mentioned the possible gambling addiction that Abilify may cause.

Links to gambling addition from Abilify has been reported on since 2010. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had even cited several adverse event reports that they had received complaining of the side effect with the medication In addition to gambling, some compulsive behaviors that that catapulted include compulsive shopping, eating, and sex. The FDA cited these adverse event reports in May 2016.

How Abilify May Cause Compulsive Behavior

Although experts are not exactly sure how Abilify causes adverse compulsive gambling addition, they believe that Abilify has an impact on the brain’s dopamine pathway. Purportedly, scientific clinical studies have illustrated that there is a link between dopamine manipulation and gambling addiction and other compulsive behaviors.

In an article and clinical study titled “The Neural Circuitry of Reward and Its Relevance to Psychiatric Disorders,” researchers report that “a possible mechanism by which drugs that act on dopamine neurons, like aripiprazole, might possibly have some effect on behavior related to award.”

Although there is no definitive link between Abilify and gambling addiction or other compulsive behaviors, the FDA does require drug manufacturing companies to revise their labels when there is reasonable evidence of a correlation or causal link between the two.

The Gambling Addiction Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-00740-MCR-GRJ, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division. It joins the Abilfy MDL, In re: Abilify (Aripiprazole) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3:16-md-2734, in the same U.S. District Court.