New at Reason

David Weigel | May 15, 2006

John Tabin has a prescription for people who want to demonize Ambien, whether or not they're named "Kennedy."

Comments

|5.15.06 @ 1:41PM|#

Dave W. with the corn syrup-ambien-sleep-driving connection in 5...4...3..

|5.15.06 @ 1:46PM|#

I've seen my ex-girlfriend on Ambien before, and she gets seriously loopy if she tries to stay awake.

|5.15.06 @ 2:03PM|#

Sheeeite...the way they railroad suspected drunk drivers these days, no presumption of innocence, no civil rights...if I got caught and had a get-out-of-DUI-free card, I can't say that I would do anything but play the fucking thing.

|5.15.06 @ 3:13PM|#

If I were a congressman and was pulled over under the influence of anything, I'd look the cop straight in the eye and tell him that I was drunk on power.

|5.15.06 @ 3:15PM|#

Sleep-deprived drivers cause 100,000 automobile accidents a year in this country. Any way you slice it, exhaustion makes our roads orders of magnitude more dangerous than a pill that grants millions a good night sleep.

Speaking of overstated claims, how many of those 100,000 accidents are actually caused by insomniacs? I'm thinking that the vast majority would be caused by people who choose to deprive themselves of sleep, so as to work long hours, get a long trip over with, party all night, etc, who wouldn't want to take Ambien even if they had the option.

|5.15.06 @ 3:39PM|#

I used to take Ambien. One pill, and 30 minutes later, I'd be asleep, guaranteed. Standing, sitting, in a chair, on the floor, wherever. I can't believe anyone would actually take that stuff and get behind the wheel of a car.

Warren|5.15.06 @ 4:14PM|#

Where is the article??? Hmm all the articles since May 12 seem to be missing

Dave W.|5.15.06 @ 5:07PM|#

wasn't going to respond, but since ur curious, MG -- let's play skeptic here:

alleging that the company has understated the incidence of somnambulism and the related phenomenon of amnestic nocturnal eating behavior, i.e. sleep-eating.

I have no idea if this is true or not. It depends on what the company (hereinafter "Ambien") said. The article doesn't say what the company said, so we have no basis for judging if anything was understated or not.

In estimating the size of the class, the lawsuit claims that "more than 1,000 persons have suffered injury or damage as a direct and proximate result of ingesting Ambien"-which is, of course, too small a fraction of the millions of people who've used Ambien to support the claim that the risk is understated.

This is nonsense. The class may be limited by factors like jurisdiction or limited in other ways. There is no reason to believe that the class is drawn from across all the millions who have taken Ambien as the author of the article is implicitly doing.

Compounding the error is the fact that presumably not everybody who does sleep walk is hurt by it. In other words, the thousand injured plaintiffs being alleged may represent a small fraction of those who suffer the (allegedly) underreported side effect.

Finally: even if only thousands out of millions are injured just in the way the article suggests, doesn't mean that Ambien reported accurately. It still depends on what Ambien said. Maybe Ambien said that only 10s out of millions would be hurt bad enuf to go to court, for instance.

(The plaintiffs also hope to show that Sonofi-Aventis knew about the risk of somnambulism in the years before the warning was added to the prescribing guidelines; there does not seem to be any evidence for this charge.)

Then that part of the case can be quickly knocked out by a summary judgement motion. Rule 56 will make the class put up or shut up on this.