The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A 1980 Letter on the Risk of Opioid Addiction
Open accessAbstract
A five-sentence letter published in the Journal in 1980 has been heavily cited as evidence that long-term opioid therapy has seldom been associated with addiction. Of the 608 citations, 72.2% used the letter uncritically as evidence that such addiction was rare.
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In the citing paper
“Leung et. al ( 12 ) analyzed the citations made to a five-sentence letter purporting to show opioids as non-addictive ( 13 ) , finding that most citations were uncritically citing the work.”
From scite: a smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
In the citing paper
“As of 2017, fewer than 20% of those citations acknowledged that the report was restricted to the hospital setting and does not apply to the in-home use where much of opioid addiction arises (79).”
From Misinformation in and about science (2021) · cites this paper as [79]
In the citing paper
“Quotation errors are more serious than citation errors”
From Quotation Errors in High-Impact-Factor Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Journals (2021) · cites this paper as [5]
In the citing paper
“as they may mislead readers and have the potential to affect patient care1,3-5”
From Quotation Errors in High-Impact-Factor Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Journals (2021) · cites this paper as [5]
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Citations
Cites
What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior
Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H. (2008) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/00220410810844150 · Cited by 1,607
Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics
(1980) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejm198001103020221 · Cited by 1,106
Opioid Therapy in Chronic Pain
Ballantyne, J. C. (2015) · Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America · doi:10.1016/j.pmr.2014.12.001 · Cited by 52
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Misinformation in and about science
West, J. D., & Bergstrom, C. T. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1912444117 · Cited by 391
Opioid-Prescribing Guidelines for Common Surgical Procedures: An Expert Panel Consensus
Overton, H. N., Hanna, M. N., Bruhn, W. E., Hutfless, S. M., Bicket, M. C., & Makary, M. A. (2018) · Journal of the American College of Surgeons · doi:10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2018.07.659 · Cited by 360
Els, C., Jackson, T., Kunyk, D., Lappi, V. G., Sonnenberg, B., Hagtvedt, R., Sharma, S., Kolahdooz, F., & Straube, S. (2017) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd012509.pub2 · Cited by 304
Levy, N., Sturgess, J., & Mills, P. (2018) · British Journal of Anaesthesia · doi:10.1016/j.bja.2017.11.098 · Cited by 217
How good intentions contributed to bad outcomes: the opioid crisis
Rummans, T. A., Burton, M. C., & Dawson, N. L. (2018) · Mayo Clinic Proceedings · doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2017.12.020 · Cited by 174
Metadata
- Authors
- Leung, P. T. M., Macdonald, E. M., Stanbrook, M. B., Dhalla, I. A., & Juurlink, D. N.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (CA)
- Sunnybrook Research Institute (CA)
- Venue
- New England Journal of Medicine
- Publisher
- Massachusetts Medical Society
- Published
- 2017-06
- Volume
- 376
- Issue
- 22
- Pages
- 2194-2195
- ISSN
- 0028-4793 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-4406
- OpenAlex
- W2618923223
- Cited by
- 193
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 11
- FWCI
- 26.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- New England Journal of Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Opioid Use
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Anesthesia and Pain Management
- Keywords
- opioid use disorder, long-term opioid therapy, opioid prescribing, addiction risk
- MeSH terms
- Analgesics, Opioid, Humans, Opioid-Related Disorders, Risk, Bibliometrics, History, 20th Century, Chronic Pain
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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