The Big Sleep - how Big Pharma is "slipping us a mickey"

Use of prescription sleeping pills in the US is up nearly 50 percent since 2001.

Last year, Americans filled 43 million prescriptions for sleeping pills, up from 29 million in 2001. Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien, the best-selling sleeping pill, was the 14th most prescribed drug in the U.S., according to research firm IMS Health. Ambien, approved in 1992, grew from less than $1 billion in sales in 2001 to more than $2 billion last year.

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, says at least part of the increase is because of a surge of DTC advertising of such anti-insomnia medications as Ambien, Rozerem and Lunesta.

Big Pharma spent more than $4 billion in consumer advertising last year, a five-fold increase in 10 years. The U.S. is among a few countries that allow consumer advertising of prescription drugs. For years, pharmaceutical advertising was directed mainly at doctors and hospitals, but in 1997, the FDA issued guidelines for television advertising that helped spur a boom in commercials.

Critics say consumer drug advertising is most questionable when hawking prescription medications that treat conditions like insomnia rather than particular ailments. By heavily promoting drugs that treat symptoms rather than illnesses, doctors say, patients may be driven to look for quick fixes instead of finding a solution.

In most cases, doctors say, sleeping pills should be the last resort. But for many insomnia sufferers, that's the first thing they ask for when they enter a doctor's office.

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