Prescriptions for sleep drugs have swelled 60 percent in the last five years, leading some experts to speculate that doctors are overprescribing the meds that are available. A chief reason for the growing demand is a steadily rising rate of insomnia, the byproduct of a much more turbulent average work day in America. A new wave of sleep drugs is supposed to have corrected some of the side effects, such as lingering fatigue, associated with older sleep drugs. But reports of short-term amnesia and sleepwalking are raising new concerns. Drug makers, meanwhile, say that the drugs are safe and effective when taken as prescribed, a message that they are promoting with an ad budget that breaks the $300 million-a-year mark.
- read this article from The New York Times for more information