FDA recommends reducing dosage of sleep aid Lunesta

Kerry says he’s seen data suggesting Syria used gas

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday he had seen raw data suggesting that Syrian government forces had used chlorine gas in the country’s civil war, but he added it had not been verified.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said Syria might have used chemical weapons involving chlorine in 14 attacks in recent months.

France is pressing the United Nations to refer the 3-year-old civil war in Syria to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, at least 43 people were killed yesterday when a car bomb went off at a Syrian border post on the frontier with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It was unclear who carried out the attack, but activists accused the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, a hard-line group that defected from alQaida.

The Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday that people prescribed the sleeping pill Lunesta should be starting with half the current recommended dose, part of the agency’s continuing effort to reduce sleep aids’ risky side effects, such as drowsiness while driving.

The agency recommended a new starting dose of 1 milligram, down from 2 milligrams, and told the pill’s manufacturer, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, to change its labels to reflect that. Using lower doses means less of the drug will remain in the blood in the morning hours, reducing the risk that people who take it will be impaired while driving.

The change was based partly on findings from a study of 91 adults by the Surrey Clinical Research Center in Britain, whose findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology in 2012.

China blames Vietnam for tensions fueling riots

A top Chinese general defended the deployment of an oil rig that has inflamed tensions in the disputed South China Sea and triggered deadly protests in Vietnam, blaming Hanoi and saying China cannot afford to “lose an inch” of territory.

Gen. Fang Fenghui, in Washington

World’s first living-donor lung transplant a success

The world’s first living-donor lung transplant using part of a donor’s right lung to replace a recipient’s left lung was completed successfully at Kyoto University Hospital, the hospital said.

The entire left lung of a female patient with an intractable lung disease was removed and replaced by the lower lobe of her husband’s right lung.

The recipient was discharged on May 10 and is steadily recovering, the hospital said. Her husband has returned to work.