In class, I often use a certain commercial for sleep aid Ambien to discuss issues related to adequacy of warnings, direct to consumer drug marketing, and more. I like the commercial because it is one minute long and almost exactly half of it is the narrator listing all the side effects and dangers of the drug, as you see images of people looking happy and healthy.
Ambien is back in the news today as the FDA is asking drug makers that sell sleeping pills that contain the zolpidem active ingredient – a list that includes Ambien – to lower current recommended doses by half - at least for women. For more details on this story go to the New York Times, Pharmalot and AboutLawsuits.com, CBS Online and CNN.
By the way, if you search You Tube for Ambien, or Ambien side effects you will find lots of videos of people complaining about the drug and of people who have filmed others while under the effects of the drug.
1 comment:
Ambien scares the crap out of me. I subscribe to a number of trial lawyer listservs, and at least once a month a lawyer writes something like, "Anyone handling Ambien cases? I've been contacted by husband of 55yo woman, both took Ambien, husband woken up by call from police after fatal accident."
As far as I know, though, no one is seriously pursuing these, because the label warns, e.g., Complex behaviors such as "sleep-driving" (i.e., driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic, with amnesia for the event) have been reported with sedative-hypnotics, including zolpidem. And under our crappy product liability laws, if you sort-of warn, then, presto, you're immune.
It should either be off the market or should be tightly restricted. I've heard of way too many "ambien zombie" incidents for that behavior to be rare.
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