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Opinion

Let old lessons guide new research

James Davis
Opinion Columnist 

Call me paranoid, but I grow a little suspicious when I see advertisements for sleep medication. The exclamation point at the end of Alluna’s slogan ("Alluna doesn’t make you sleep. It lets you sleep!") sets off some alarms, for me at least. 

I trust that green, radioactive moth in the Lunesta ads about as far as I can throw it. Sure, it’s a comforting image, but there’s something distinctly eerie about a glowing insect ushering you down the cobblestone path to Sleepyland.

Whether I’m alone in these fears, they don’t seem to be hampering the profits of sleeping-pill pushers. Last year, pharmacists distributed 26 million prescriptions for Ambien alone, making its manufacturers, Sanofi-Aventis, $2 billion richer. Reservations or not, the market for sleep aids is growing. These untold millions of insomniacs will gladly swallow their fears with two tablets and a big glass of water.

But the more we find out about these pills, the more manufacturers’ promise of sound sleep seems less and less trustworthy. The Food and Drug Administration documented 207 sleepwalking reports between 1997 and June 2005 related to sleep aids, 48 of which are linked to Ambien. Though the FDA accepts such reports, it does not actively solicit them, which likely diminishes the actual frequency of somnambulism. The handful of reported cases, however, are nothing short of bizarre.

In fact, the term "sleepwalking" does not adequately reflect the sufferers’ behavior. These people aren’t just lurching around their houses with their arms stretched out; they’re carrying out some bastardized version of their wakeful activities. They don’t sleepwalk so much as they sleep-eat, sleep-dial, sleep-drive or sleep-shoplift.

Sleep-eating is perhaps the most common and curious of these phenomena. Dr. Mark Mahowald of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center reports these somnambulists walking to their kitchens and preparing grotesque midnight snacks: buttered cigarettes, salt sandwiches, raw bacon. Ambien user Brenda Pobre claims to have gained 100 pounds since she began taking the drug.

Pobre isn’t alone. Internet message boards have popped up where people can share Ambien stories. A class-action lawsuit against Sanofi-Aventis was filed in federal court March 6. Sanofi-Aventis may qualify somnambulism as a "rare side effect," but more and more users are registering complaints. 

And though this side effect may only endanger some people’s waistlines, it has endangered others’ careers and lives. News reports and interviews show Ambien users involved in automobile accidents they can’t recall. In one case, a lieutenant on a Tampa, Fla., military base was charged with shoplifting DVDs and a candle from the base exchange during a bout of somnambulism. She now faces dishonorable discharge.

I will reluctantly confess I find these reports sort of funny. Isn’t there something humorous about a grown man wandering half-asleep to his kitchen and, driven by some unconscious urge, eating an entire loaf of bread? Maybe it’s schadenfreude. I can sleep through anything ? thunderstorms, alarms, phone calls, classes ? and part of me wants to believe these restless busybodies have it coming. 

How is it possible that Ambien is the only way to find sleep? Lay off the caffeine, start exercising, build a regular schedule and then see if you still need the pills. Sleeplessness is the product of numerous factors, and taking a pill will not yank out the roots of the problem.

At the same time, I recognize the sincere need people have for this sort of medication. As Pobre asserts, "I have chronic insomnia. And I’ve tried everything, behavior modification, everything. And nothing works except Ambien." When such a large group of people is so dependent on a product, shouldn’t the producers ensure the products’ safety?

They should, of course, but why would they if the FDA won’t actively track the effects of the product? Sleepwalking is an especially difficult disorder to analyze since it happens unconsciously and irregularly, which should encourage the FDA to study it with even more scrutiny. We won’t know just how harmful Ambien and other sleep aids are until we gather the proper data. And it definitely shouldn’t be up to the users to do all the analysis and reporting themselves. Will these reports decrease Ambien’s sales? I doubt it. Will they prompt more incisive research and accurate statistics on the product’s adversity? I hope so. Either way, this is not a catastrophe so much as it is an old lesson: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

Olestra may have reduced the fat content of our potato chips, but it also caused abdominal cramping. Cigarettes may have soothed our jangled nerves, but then there was that whole cancer thing. With the pretty green moths and catchy slogans, it’s easy to forget that the medicine is worth more than the cure.

Davis, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at jpdavis@uh.edu.