FDA strengthens warning about sleeping pill dangers

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Can’t sleep?  Neither can 60 million other Americans. An estimated one in four of us experience acute insomnia each year and have difficulty falling or staying asleep.

Now the Food and Drug Administration is strengthening warnings about some commonly used sleep aids.

Sleeping pills marketed under the names Lunesta, Sonata and Ambien — will require new black-box warnings for potentially dangerous side-effects.

There have been reports of rare, but serious, injuries and deaths resulting from sleepwalking, sleep-driving and other complex behaviors by people who took the popular drugs.

The FDA says 20 deaths have been blamed on the pills.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some four percent of adults have used prescription sleep aids in the past month.

See FDA report here.