24th Jan 2008: Here's a few news and opinion items collected from the net on the potentially iatrogenic circumstances (or other relevant information) surrounding the recent and very tragic death of Heath Ledger...

The items below thus far paint a very negative picture, regarding the assaults on Heath Ledger's health that were occurring prior to his tragic demise: commencing with stress and depression from a breakup, coupled with the taking of SIX types of prescription pills:

"anti-anxiety medications Alprazolam (Xanax), Diazepam (Valium) and Lorazepam (Ativan). The sleeping medication Zoplicone (Lunesta) and the sedative Temazepam (Restoril) -- which is used by people with "debilitating insomnia" [source quoted below]

In addition to this he was sleep deprived, only being able to sleep for a couple of hours per evening, and his diet included aspartame in the form of diet coke, which is strongly recognised in non-allopathic circles as potentially quite devastating to health.

It may be a hindsight comment, but nonetheless it appears to be a recipe for disaster. 

7th February 2008: Toxicology Report

 "Mr Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine,'' the city's chief medical examiner's office said in a statement.

"We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications,'' it added.

1. Source: Salon... 

It Was The Ambien

I'm almost sure of it. I know a couple of people who take Ambien semi-regularly. According to them it one tablet knocks a person right on their ass. When he said in November that he was popping two Ambien tablets to get ONE hour of sleep, that should have raised a very large red flag with somebody, because something was drastically wrong. But it didn't, and now he's dead. SHIT!

I've seen the extended trailer to "The Dark Knight" and, oh yes, did we ever lose somebody major. It's like James Dean all over again. This summer that movie is going to come out and everyone who cares about cinema is going to be grieving anew, just like people did in the 50s when "Giant" was released.

Prescription drugs

Thank you to the person who wrote about prescription drugs vs. illegal drugs.

J, a dear neighbor of mine here in Long Beach, CA was driving in her car on July 17 2003 to pick up a friend. A 50 year-old woman strung out on prescription drugs was driving in the opposite direction: she hit one car (the driver survived), then rammed into J's car. J. was taken to the hospital where she died. The 50 year-old woman survived - to this day I don't know if she was given any jail sentence. She was the sweetest woman, kind and good, always helping others. All of her neighbors were devestated.

Everytime I pass by the "scene of the crime" a few miles from where I live, I feel immensely sad, angry. Angry at the driver who killed J., angry at the doctor who prescribed the pills and angry at the industry who made and promoted the pills that the woman was taking.

Pharmaceutical companies make billions of Dollars making these drugs, many of which were tested on helpless animals. Doctors prescribe them at the drop of a hat. Millons of people are taking these dangerous drugs. Tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs are terrible - as are guns and junk food. Pharmaceutical drugs are right up there with those five in terms of horrific effects on our society.

I wonder if Heath Ledger's family are going to sue the pharmaceutical company? Or his doctor? I'm not a fan of law suits, but sometimes that's the only way to change things and call attention to serious issues.

The pharmaceutical industry are as bad as the weapon industry. They will say that people are warned about the side effects, but it doesn't absolve them. They have blood on their hands: human and animal.

Heath Ledger Death Update: Six Pharmaceuticals Found - Antidepressants, Sleep Meds and More

 Source: newstarget

Media Blames Heath Ledger, Refuses to Examine Dangers of the Pharmaceuticals Found Beside His Body

Thursday, January 24, 2008 by: Mike Adams

Mike Adam's latest statement after tox report

(NaturalNews ) Toxicology tests have now confirmed the cause of Heath Ledger's death. He was killed by a deadly combination of FDA-approved medications prescribed to him by his doctors. The drugs found in Ledger's system were OxyContin (a painkiller), Valium, Xanax (an antidepressant), Restoril, Unisom and Vicodin. This toxicology report ends any speculation that Ledger might have been killed by taking recreational drugs. The cause of death is now clearly FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.

As NaturalNews previously reported, FDA-approved pharmaceuticals kill at least 100,000 Americans each year. While Heath Ledger's death is certainly no isolated event, it does shed light on the seriousness of the problem. What problem? That doctors so casually prescribe such toxic chemicals to patients. Thanks to FDA backing and non-stop direct-to-consumer drug advertising on television, most patients believe FDA-approved drugs are harmless. So they take them in large quantities as if they were food supplement of some kind, much like Ledger probably did.

This casual attitude towards the safety of prescription drugs is the direct result of the pharmaceutical industry's attempts to position its drugs as "happy pills" or health-enhancing supplements. Television ads feature healthy, natural-looking people in nature, performing Qi-Gong while pushing their drugs. Even the names of the drugs are misleading: "Restoril" implies a "Restorative" function, for example.

In reality, most prescription drugs cause severe liver toxicity. And when used in combination, this toxicity can be multiplied by thousands of times, creating a chemical cocktail of deadly medicine. This is apparently what killed Heath Ledger.

While many might blame Ledger for taking too many of these pills, it is precisely the "safe" and "natural" positioning of these drugs by the drug companies and the FDA that causes people to maintain a distorted perception of the safety of those drugs. Would Ledger have taken so many pills if he really knew the dangers? Of course not. Ledger had no death wish. He simply sought medical care, and sadly, he put his trust in a deceptive system of medicine that ultimately killed him (and kills countless others each year around the world).

Don't follow Heath Ledger into an early grave. Avoid prescription drugs and seek out natural medicines. They work better than pharmaceuticals, they're cheaper than pharmaceuticals, and they won't kill you.

Heath Ledger - Tragedy, with Controversy to Follow

 source newstarget

Byron J. Richards , Founder/Director of Wellness Resources

The entertainment community is in shock over the loss of a rising star. Heath Ledger, dead at the age of 28, apparently from an accidental overdose of medication. Autopsy results have been delayed for 10 days, but enough information has already become public to understand what likely took place. Heath Ledger did not need to die.

It now appears that Ledger is one of the 100,000 people a year who needlessly die in America from the use of Big Pharma toxins. His health problems were difficult but not unfixable – except by medical doctors who have little skill other than trying to titrate various poisons in the name of symptom improvement. Oftentimes physicians ignore the warnings for the drugs being prescribed as well as the patient's history, which appears to be the case in this situation. I have often wondered how so many deaths can be swept under the rug. Maybe now more people will begin to pay attention.

Ledger was suffering from a relatively common health problem called wind-up. In this condition the nerves feel like a cat on a hot tin roof. The mind races, yet the body cannot sleep even though the person is physically exhausted. Doctors give nerve sedation medications to treat the symptoms of this problem – substances that carry a high risk for addiction (especially in someone with addiction history), are inherently dangerous, and even more dangerous when combined with other sleep medications. The New York Post reported that Ambien pills (a hypnotic drug) were found near his body, and generic versions of the Xanax and Valium anti-anxiety pills prescribed in the actor's name, were found in the house. A bottle of Donormyl, an antihistamine used as a sleep aid, and a packet of the drug Zopiclone (a controlled substance in the Ambien family), also used for insomnia, were found on his nightstand.

As reported by CNN: At the time of his death, Ledger had just finished playing the villain The Joker in "The Dark Knight," the latest installment in the Batman series. The film is to open in July. The role disturbed him, according to The Associated Press. He called The Joker a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy." "Last week, I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told The New York Times. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

Ambien has been in the spotlight for the past year due to its inducing of bizarre sleep-walking behavior, both in the U.S. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301317.html) and in Ledger's native Australia. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/ledger-taking-us-version-of-stilnox/2008/01/23/1201024963795.html) Even the FDA (http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01587.html) managed a warning on the issue. Those with a history of addictive problems are not supposed to take Ambien. Ledger has a known and recent history of battling heroine addiction (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23099380-661,00.html) alcohol use, and depression. The simple fact is that he was on drugs he should not have been on.

Thus emerges a picture of a person with a weak nervous system in a wound up condition and unable to sleep – not unlike millions of sleepless Americans. His problems had been challenged by a demanding movie role and shaky personal life. It was likely that he was self-medicating with dangerous drugs and their combinations – with no idea he should not be on these drugs or that they could kill him – not unlike tens of thousands of other Americans who also die each year.

Of course, it is easy to argue that any sleep is better than no sleep. This argument loses value when the remedies don't work well and the problem is ongoing. Like tens of millions of Americans, Ledger got high-risk toxic symptom management with little or no effort trying to fix the source of the problem. This is how Western Medicine is performed when no obvious disease can be found.

And now the real controversy emerges. Doctors who are trained only in Big Pharma are actually a liability to society. They betray the trust of those in need. Sure Heath Ledger had problems, where was the real help?

The FDA is doing everything in its power to prevent anyone from understanding how to naturally improve them. The FDA is the police force bully, protecting the profits of Big Pharma in exchange for future jobs at Big Pharma, at the expense of Americans trying to be healthy. The long and sordid history of the FDA, as well as its future plans to control your health options, are clearly laid out in my book Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America (read free at) (http://www.wellnessresources.com/Books/fight_for_your_health.php)

Heath Ledger suffered from an excess build up of substance P in his nervous system – a problem doctors don't even comprehend (as drugs don't ever fix it and usually make the problem worse). Substance P is an inflammatory nerve chemical, which must be cleared out of nerves before a person can sleep. Drugs that knock out the nervous system are like a credit card, with a very low credit limit. Nutrients can be used to naturally discharge substance P from the nerves, as well as restore natural balance to the brain stem, so a person can sleep. He also needed help nutritionally building up his depleted nervous system – his underlying health problem. These issues can readily be fixed if a person understands what they are doing and why – I know – as a top nutritionist I help people fix them all the time and have for years. The problem is for the general public, wherein the FDA flagrantly suppresses the First Amendment right of our citizens to understand how nutrition works in the context of a health problem. Heath Ledger could well be alive today if the FDA wasn't actively blocking access to how to use nutrition to solve difficult health problems.

© 2008 Truth in Wellness (http://www.truthinwellness.com/) LLC - All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.

About the author

Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources (http://www.wellnessresources.com/) is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, and educator. He is the author of Mastering Leptin, (http://www.wellnessresources.com/products/mastering_leptin.php) The Leptin Diet, (http://www.wellnessresources.com/Books/leptin_diet.php) and Fight for Your Health: The FDA's Betrayal of America (http://www.wellnessresources.com/Books/fight_for_your_health.php)

Richards encourages individuals to take charge of their health, stand up for their health rights, and not blindly succumb to propaganda from the vested interests who profit from keeping Americans sick. As founder of Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN, an independently owned fine-quality dietary supplement company since 1985, he has personally developed 75 unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas. Wellness Resources.Com (http://www.wellnessresources.com/)

For a FREE Subscription to Byron's Health Newsletter, click this link: http://www.wellnessresources.com/store/newsletter.php
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Ledger 'taking US version of Stilnox'

The sleeping tablets that actor Heath Ledger was reportedly taking in the months leading up to his death might have combined with his reported pneumonia to fatal effect.

Ledger was reported to be taking a sleeping tablet called Ambien, which is marketed as Stilnox in Australia and has been at the centre of controversy because it can make people act bizarrely in their sleep.

Two months ago Australia's medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, updated its warnings on the drug after alarming reports that consumers were walking, eating, driving and having sexual intercourse in their sleep.

The updated warning now also mentions less common side-effects such as "rage reactions, worsened insomnia, confusion, agitation, hallucinations and other forms of unwanted behaviour".

A national drug reactions hotline fielded 500 calls from Stilnox users who reported odd behaviours from crashing cars to falling from balconies after popping a pill. One patient gained 23 kilograms over seven months after unknowingly eating from the refrigerator while asleep. Another patient woke up with a paintbrush in her hand after painting the front door.

The manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis said it was difficult to establish whether these behaviours were triggered by the drug, or were "spontaneous" or caused by an underlying condition.

Although he couldn't comment specifically on the case, general practitioner John Gullotta said: "In general, pneumonia can be a fatal condition if it progresses quickly and it hasn't got better with treatment. Sometimes sleeping tablets can add to that and can cause respiratory problems.

"The benzodiazepine class of sleeping tablet can dampen down breathing. It all depends how many [the person] takes and the dosage," Dr Gullotta, who is also the chairman of the therapeutic committee of the Australian Medical Association, said.

But he added that respiratory problems were not that common with Stilnox.

In an interview with The New York Times in November, Ledger admitted his role as the Joker in the upcoming film The Dark Knight had made him feel so stressed he was unable to sleep.

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," he said. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going," Ledger said.

He told the interviewer he had taken one Ambien tablet, but it had failed to work so he took another, fell into a deep stupor, then woke an hour later feeling agitated.

 To Sleep, Perchance to . . . Walk
Reports Raise Questions About Sleeping Pill Side Effect. Is Ambien Sleepwalking Understated?

By Martin F. Downs
source: Washington Post Tuesday, March 14, 2006

The most prescribed sleep medication in the United States may be linked to episodes of sleepwalking and related strange and dangerous behaviors, experts say -- including incidents of nocturnal eating, phone conversations, shoplifting and even driving -- of which the subject has no memory.

Sleep specialists and researchers cite a growing though still inconclusive body of reports associating Sanofi-Aventis's drug Ambien with the incidents. More than 24 million prescriptions for Ambien were written in 2004.

Timothy Morgenthaler, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center in Rochester, Minn., says he has seen many cases of people who sleepwalk and sleep-eat after taking Ambien.

He described five such cases in a 2002 report in the journal Sleep Medicine. All those patients stopped having sleep-eating episodes when they discontinued Ambien, Morgenthaler said. Since then he has seen many similar cases, he said.

"I feel pretty comfortable that this is a real phenomenon," he said.

Sanofi-Aventis, the French maker of the drug, declined to make officials available for interviews. The company issued a statement saying the side effect is known but rare, and that "when taken as prescribed, Ambien is a safe and effective treatment for insomnia." The side effect is disclosed in the product's full labeling material, where it is cited among numerous central nervous system side effects.

Other case reports of Ambien-related sleepwalking have been published in medical journals, and researchers of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center reported 19 additional cases at a medical conference last year.

Reports made to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by doctors and patients show more sleepwalking incidents associated with Ambien than with all other sleep aids combined.

None of these observations proves Ambien causes sleepwalking, and questions about the side effect were not raised during the FDA's preapproval review of the scientific data. The agency approved the drug in 1993.

Ambien and other newer sleep drugs are considered safer than previous types, in that they are believed to be less addictive and less toxic even in overdose.

The case of lifelong insomnia sufferer Janet Makinen is typical of the Ambien incidents.

The 55-year-old resident of Dade City, Fla., said she took Ambien nightly for six years. During that time, she regularly got out of bed after having fallen asleep, went to the kitchen and ate, she said.

"I went from wearing a size 1 to wearing a size 12," Makinen said. "I would eat raw eggs. I would eat a half-gallon of ice cream. I would eat a bag of potato chips, a loaf of bread."

She would find evidence of her night eating afterward, she said, but had no memory of doing it.

Makinen, identified via an Internet message board where people share Ambien stories, was interviewed late last year. She has since become a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against Sanofi-Aventis filed in federal court on March 6.

Others involved in the lawsuit face criminal charges for things they have done while they say they were sleepwalking on Ambien, including driving and shoplifting. One alleges she was twice sexually assaulted after taking Ambien, and has only partial memories of the incidents.

Susan Chana Lask, a New York lawyer who represents the plaintiffs, says that besides seeking damages, they hope to force the drug company to provide stronger cautions about sleepwalking. "People need to know about the risks of serious problems associated with this drug," she said.

Sanofi Aventis declined to comment on the suit, which a spokesman said the company had not seen.

Dozens of Ambien users have reported being involved in auto accidents they do not remember, according to news reports and interviews.

Some sleep experts interviewed said the side effect is increasingly familiar to academic and research sleep specialists. But many mainstream sleep clinicians see no problems with the drug, interviews showed. No expert interviewed said he or she had stopped prescribing Ambien due to fear of side effects.

Helene Emsellem, medical director of the Center for Sleep and Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, says she has seen no link between Ambien and sleepwalking in her practice, which is one of the largest of its type in the region. "Nor do we see [Ambien] standing out as problematic" among other available sleep medications, she said.

Somnambulism, the clinical term for sleepwalking, is a "partial arousal" disorder, in which a person is not fully asleep but not completely awake.

In addition to medications, sleepwalking can be triggered by sleep deprivation, alcohol, fevers, stress, and some mental and neurological conditions.

Ambien may render some people unable to awaken completely even when something significant disturbs their sleep, so they enter the state of partial arousal, some experts say. "It is the case, perhaps, of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object," said Michael Sateia, chief of the Section of Sleep Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

According to Stacia Sailer, medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, some people taking sleep medications (not just Ambien) can, in that partial state of arousal, carry out many routine activities. The case of Lt. Judith Renee Lasswell, 39, a Navy intelligence officer stationed in Tampa, included several bizarre incidents, including a case of alleged shoplifting that threatens her military career.

According to the complaint in the class-action suit, she once wandered into the intelligence center where she works talking incoherently, and her colleagues led her back to bed. She said she has no memories of the episode.

But most damaging was an incident last September when, after taking Ambien, Lasswell said she sleepwalked into the base exchange, carrying several DVDs which she had purchased previously or rented from the base library. After returning an "X-Files" DVD to receive store credit, she was approached by base police, who claimed she had taken the DVD off the shelf, failed to pay for it and returned it for credit. She was handcuffed and charged with shoplifting DVDs and a candle.

Lasswell said she has no memory of the incidents.

According to the complaint, Lasswell's top-secret security clearance was subsequently revoked, and she faces larceny charges and a dishonorable discharge. A 17-year Navy veteran, she risks losing her pension and severance pay.

"I've never had a problem before in my life until I took Ambien, and it's literally ruined my career and everything I ever worked for," Lasswell said in a statement. "I have gaps in memory from the whole time I was on Ambien, which is very terrifying."

In January, Lasswell requested a polygraph test to support her defense in the military judicial process. According to the test report, a copy of which was provided by Lask, Lasswell denied intending to steal and falsely claiming store credit, and said she did not remember the events related to the incident. The polygraph examiner found "no deception" in her responses, according to the report.

There is no reliable estimate of how many Ambien users sleepwalk, and no one knows who might be at risk. The prescribing information for Ambien lists somnambulism as a "rare" side effect, meaning that it has been reported in fewer than one in 1,000 patients.

Sateia says a lack of solid data on post-approval side effects makes it impossible to know whether the company's estimation of the rate is accurate.

After a drug is approved and marketed in the United States, the FDA accepts (but does not actively solicit) reports of side effects from doctors, patients and drug makers. FDA adverse event report databases contain sleepwalking reports from 1997 through June 2005. (Ambien has been available in the United States since 1993, but sleepwalking events per se were not reported before 1997.)

There are 207 sleepwalking reports. Most of the incidents are considered "idiopathic" by physicians reporting the episodes, meaning their cause is not known. Of all sleep aids, however, Ambien is linked to the most incidents -- 48 of them, or about a quarter of the total.

The data contain two reports associated with Sonata, a drug that acts in a way similar to Ambien. Sonata was approved in 1999. The data contain no sleepwalking reports for Lunesta, the newest sleep drug, which was not widely available until April 2005.

There are also fewer reports linked to older sleep aids called benzodiazepines, including Ativan, Halcion, Restoril, Valium, and Xanax. For these six drugs, which when considered as a group were prescribed more times than Ambien, there are 18 reports collectively.

Larry Sasich, a pharmacist and consultant to Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, says the adverse event reports "raise a legitimate question" about a possible association between Ambien and sleepwalking, particularly since "what winds up in the FDA's database is only the tip of the iceberg." Researchers believe that only a small portion of adverse drug reactions are reported to the FDA.

Adverse event data must be interpreted carefully because many things affect what is reported and how often. Sleepwalking is particularly tricky to track. It's not like liver failure, for example, which unmistakably either happens or does not. Many people may never find out about their sleepwalking or may not understand what they experienced. Others are reluctant to report it: "People do not volunteer this information," Morgenthaler said. "If you do not ask specifically about this behavior, you will miss most of it."

The Mayo Clinic Sleep Center's standard patient questionnaire now includes questions about sleep-related eating.

"In a sane world . . . [reports like those for Ambien] would be an occasion for FDA to ask the manufacturers to do careful surveillance," said Jerry Avorn, chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. "But they're not going to do that."

Meanwhile, Sanofi has introduced a new formulation of Ambien, called Ambien CR, designed to sustain sleep throughout the night. Sonata and Lunesta are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising to battle for market share, and competing drugs are working their way toward approval. Consumers are being sold on the benefits and safety of sleep medications as never before.

"That can give patients, and physicians for that matter, the impression that the management of [sleep] problems is as simple as giving someone a prescription for a sleeping medication and sending them on their way," Sateia said. "It's not that simple." ·

Martin F. Downs is a freelancer in Meriden, N.H. Join Michael Sateia of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center today at 1 p.m. for a Live Online chat on sleep disorders and reported Ambien side effects at www.washingtonpost.com. Comments: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

FDA News

FDA Requests Label Change for All Sleep Disorder Drug Products

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requested that all manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic drug products, a class of drugs used to induce and/or maintain sleep, strengthen their product labeling to include stronger language concerning potential risks. These risks include severe allergic reactions and complex sleep-related behaviors, which may include sleep-driving. Sleep driving is defined as driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic product, with no memory of the event.

"There are a number of prescription sleep aids available that are well-tolerated and effective for many people," said Steven Galson, M.D., MPH, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "However, after reviewing the available post-marketing adverse event information for these products, FDA concluded that labeling changes are necessary to inform health care providers and consumers about risks."

In December 2006, FDA sent letters to manufacturers of products approved for the treatment of sleep disorders requesting that the whole class of drugs revise product labeling to include warnings about the following potential adverse events:

• Anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) and angioedema (severe facial swelling), which can occur as early as the first time the product is taken.
• Complex sleep-related behaviors which may include sleep-driving, making phone calls, and preparing and eating food (while asleep).

FDA has been working with the product manufacturers over the past three months to update labeling, notify health care providers and inform consumers of these risks.

Along with the labeling revisions, FDA has requested that each product manufacturer send letters to health care providers to notify them about the new warnings. Manufacturers will begin sending these letters to providers starting this week.

In addition, FDA has requested that manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic products develop Patient Medication Guides for the products to inform consumers about risks and advise them of potential precautions that can be taken. Patient Medication Guides are handouts given to patients, families and caregivers when a medicine is dispensed. The guides will contain FDA-approved information such as proper use and the recommendation to avoid ingesting alcohol and/or other central nervous system depressants. When these Medication Guides are available, patients being treated with sleep medications should read the information before taking the product and talk to their doctors if they have questions or concerns. Patients should not discontinue the use of these medications without first consulting their health care provider.

Although all sedative-hypnotic products have these risks, there may be differences among products in how often they occur. For this reason, FDA has recommended that the drug manufacturers conduct clinical studies to investigate the frequency with which sleep-driving and other complex behaviors occur in association with individual drug products.

The medications that are the focus of the revised labeling include the following 13 products:

Ambien/Ambien CR (Sanofi Aventis)
Butisol Sodium (Medpointe Pharm HLC)
Carbrital (Parke-Davis)
Dalmane (Valeant Pharm)
Doral (Questcor Pharms)
Halcion (Pharmacia & Upjohn)
Lunesta (Sepracor)
Placidyl (Abbott)
Prosom (Abbott)
Restoril (Tyco Healthcare)
Rozerem (Takeda)
Seconal (Lilly)
Sonata (King Pharmaceuticals)

For more information on the sedative hypnotic products and sleep disorders, visit http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/sedative_hypnotics/default.htm;
www.fda.gov/womens/getthefacts/sleep.html and www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/inso/inso_whatis.html.

Excerpt Source: Herald Sun

HOLLYWOOD legend Jack Nicholson recently warned Ledger about the dangers of his lifestyle. Nicholson said he had almost driven off a cliff after taking Ambien, which is marketed as Stilnox in Australia.

SIX types of prescription pills were found in Ledger's apartment. The nearly full bottles contained the anti-anxiety medications Alprazolam (Xanax), Diazepam (Valium) and Lorazepam (Ativan). The sleeping medication Zoplicone (Lunesta) and the sedative Temazepam (Restoril) -- which is used by people with "debilitating insomnia" - were also found according to TMZ.com.

HEATH Ledger was anxious about the breakdown of his relationship with the mother of his child while he was home in Perth for Christmas, a friend said.