1980: Dr. Hershel Jick was a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine.
He was in charge of the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, which began in 1966. That group, which still exists, published hundreds of data-driven pharmacological studies.
One of Dr. Jick’s graduate students, Jane Porter, compiled information at his request about opioids administered by doctors to hospitalized patients.
According to the data, only 4 out of 11,882 patients who were not already addicts became addicted to opioids — in a hospital setting.