Re: Dam Kennedy again!Kennedy case puts Ambien again under spotlight

I saw that in my Washington Post email yesterday, I just shook my
head......it's like blaming anything but the fool who was responsible for
doing the deed but hey, he's a Kennedy, it comes natural to point the finger
elsewhere........I do hope that the FDA blows it off though, I don't use
Ambien alot but I DO use it!

Carol J



CHEEKY *** wrote:
Here we go again! This news went down with my morning coffee like a
lump of
sh*t.
So just because some @sshole US REP can't control himself he uses
the drug
that helps millions of us get the sleep we need and now is going to
do what?
Move to have the drug banned like Oxycontin because people did not
follow
the directions?
This has got me pissed till no end because for me Ambien and Zanax
help me
get more sleep than I usually would and it wasn't until a few days
ago I got
better insurance and am not limited to 14 pills in 25 days or prior
auths to
get the 30 I need.
It pisses me off that when ever someone is irresponsible they cop
out it
with "my meds made me do it".

I know I will be writing to the person who wrote this and the makers
of
Ambien so they know not to let this one @sshole with some power screw
it up
for the rest of us.

CB



UPDATE 1-Kennedy case puts Ambien again under spotlight
Fri May 5, 2006 4:29 PM ET



(Recasts, adds Kennedy comments, paragraph 3, background)

By Kim Dixon

CHICAGO, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy's statement that
he
used Sanofi-Aventis's sleep drug Ambien to explain how he was
involved in a
late-night car crash has revived questions over whether the drug
causes side
effects like sleepwalking and binge eating.

The Rhode Island Democrat had also taken the prescription anti-nausea
drug
phenergan before crashing his car into a security barrier in
Washington
early on Thursday morning. No one was hurt in the incident, but
Kennedy said
on Friday he was was checking himself into a program for further
treatment
of a chronic addiction to prescription pain pills.

"I simply do not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by
police or
being cited for three driving infractions," Kennedy told a news
conference.
"I am deeply concerned about my reaction to the medication and my
lack of
knowledge of the accident that evening."

On Thursday, Kennedy said that after a series of votes on Wednesday
night he
took the prescribed amount of phenergan, which treats
gastroenteritis, as
well as Ambien. He said he had not consumed alcohol.

Sanofi-Aventis <SASY.PA> says Ambien, used by millions of people
since its
introduction in 1993, has lulled patients to sleep for 12 billion
nights. It
says sleepwalking is a rare side effect and it stands by the drug's
safety.

But researchers at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota have
identified more than two dozen cases of dangerous sleepwalking among
people
who took Ambien, and they believe the phenomenon is more common than
the
company says.

"We are seeing pretty extreme expressions of sleepwalking - like
getting
into a car and driving," said Michel Cramer-Bornemann, a researcher
at the
clinic. "And when we remove the Ambien, it is resolved."

The data, to be submitted for publication in several months, is still
anecdotal. "But good science starts with observation," he said.

Michael Sateia, chief of sleep medicine at Dartmouth Medical School,
said,
"There is white hot attention on this particular agent, but we need
to be
cautious about jumping to conclusions."

About 30 million people in the United States take sleep medications,
according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Ambien leads
the
market by far. By some counts, that is a 50 percent jump in the use
of such
drugs since the beginning of the decade.

Serious suspected side effects are short-term memory loss and cases of
patients involved in road accidents a day after taking the drug who
complained they still felt drugged.

Sanofi has said about 4 percent of people might sleep walk with or
without
the drug.

That estimate is a bit high, according to Donna Arand, president of
the
American Insomnia Association.

She explained that sleepwalking occurs when a patient's brain goes
into the
deepest cycles of sleep and has trouble getting back into the lighter
cycles. "You end up with a sleeping brain and an awake body," she
said.

Sateia of Dartmouth suggested that Sanofi should re-examine the
original
trial data it submitted to regulators when it won approval.

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-05-05T202904Z_01_N05437139_RTRIDST_0_PEOPLE-KENNEDY-AMBIEN-UPDATE-1.XML


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