Doctors wake up to sleeping pill risks
April 25, 2006The National Institutes of Health has called for more research into insomnia treatments amid reports of people who eat, cook and drive in their sleep.
The prescription sleep aid Ambien is one of the top 20 drugs found in the blood of drivers pulled over by Wisconsin police, USA Today reported. It showed up in 187 drivers arrested by Wisconsin police from 1999 to 2004, the newspaper said.
A June 2005 article in the journal Sleep reported that 19 patients were eating in their sleep after taking Ambien. Two started small fires while trying to cook.
Ambien's maker Sanofi-Aventis says such bizarre side effects are extremely rare, USA Today said. But with doctors writing 26 million prescriptions for Ambien a year, even rare events could affect a lot of patients, said Michel Cramer-Bornemann, a doctor at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis.
Kimberley Thacker, vice president of medical affairs at Sanofi-Aventis, told the newspaper the drug is very safe when used properly. Ambien's label lists sleepwalking as a "possible rare adverse event" that affects fewer than 1 in 1,000 patients.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Nov 19, 2009 |
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