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New Yorkers are increasingly turning to sedation to help them escape the nightmares created by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
According to doctors and pharmacists in the city, New York's denizens -- many grieving for lost friends and family -- are looking to medicine more than ever before to help fall asleep.
"The week of the 11th, there were very few calls because patients assumed we were tied up taking care of the disaster and probably thought their problems seemed small," said Charles Bardes, associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and a New York Hospital doctor.
"Now, in the third week since the attack, the floodgates have opened and I'm getting dozens and dozens of calls for sleeping pills and other drugs," Bardes said.
The two most commonly prescribed sleeping pills, those for which Bardes said he has seen a "huge swell" of requests, are Ambien from Pharmacia Corp., and Sonata from American Home Products Corp.
Some pharmacists said the spike in demand for these drugs was immediate.
"Right after the incident, sale of Ambien went up about 50%," said Rajan Kohli of independent Falk Drug & Surgical Supply near New York Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
A great number of elderly patients who are prescribed the drugs on an "as needed" basis were getting prescriptions filled for the first time, Kohli added. "With all the added stress, they needed their sleep."
Vicious Circle
Consumption of sleeping pills and antidepressants is common in dealing with stress and anxiety resulting from trauma, however they're only a temporary relief.
Even at pharmacies near the World Trade Center, such as Kings Discount Pharmacy on Hudson Street, where business has dropped dramatically since the attacks, there has been a rise in the sale of sleeping pills and antidepressants such as Prozac from Eli Lilly & Co. and Paxil from GlaxoSmithKline.
"Lots of patients are asking for these drugs for the first time and you have got to figure it is because of what happened," said pharmacist Anthony Bagliano.
The rise in the consumption of the drugs also was evident in other parts of the city.
"There's been an increase in the sale of Paxil and Prozac," said pharmacist Gus Torlidakis of the Village Apothecary in New York's West Village.
Sonata sold about $74 million for AHP in 2000, its first year on the market, and that was without any direct-to-consumer advertising. The company said it has no plans to expand its marketing for the drug.
In the wake of the attacks, word of mouth has been more than sufficient advertisement for many drugs. Bardes said he has resisted upping his prescriptions of antibiotics such as Cipro, which has been flying off shelves as New Yorkers fear a biological attack with potentially deadly anthrax bacteria.
"Prescription of Cipro would unnecessarily lead to anxiety, and deplete the supply of a very important antibiotic," he said, adding that sleeplessness is a natural symptom of anxiety suffered after disaster and the drugs to treat it can be dispensed with little effect on managing a state of emergency.
Rush Redux
The weeks since the attack represent the second rush on New York pharmacies in two years.
In the six months leading up to Dec. 31, 1999, when people thought a Y2K bug in the nation's computers would bring banking to a halt and even launch nuclear weapons, New Yorkers stockpiled drugs along with other supplies.
"It was much more serious then, since the over-ordering was across the spectrum of drugs," said Larry Kurtz, director of corporate communications and investor relations at drug distributor McKesson Corp.
While there is no shortage of drugs, McKesson has been contacting pharmacies to warn them that daily deliveries may be delayed on average by about two hours, pharmacist Kohli said.
"Now we have adequate supplies of all the drugs that are seeing a rise in prescription now," Kurtz said. "It seems that intense planning between drug makers, wholesalers, and retailers back in 1999 paid off," he said.
Reuters September 26, 2001
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