The "Baby Boy Blue" (2010) case is the clearest example of the harm. An infant allegedly exposed to opioids through breast milk. That case influenced clinical guidance on codeine safety in nursing for years. The CARE guidelines (Consensus-based Clinical Case Reporting Guidelines) exist specifically to create transparency in case reporting. They're voluntary, which is how a journal can run a 25-year undisclosed fiction program and technically say the authors knew.
Case reports are descriptive not determinative and should be treated as such by other scholars. They are 'I saw this' not 'this is generalizably true'. They can (and often are) replicated or countered but they are not per se research as you are thinking about it. Whether it is fictitious or not, other scholars should be cautious in citing them as proof/evidence in papers that fit into the 'research' mold.
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/d...
The IRB for a particular organization can impose additional restrictions.
Much easier to review for whomever wants to review it.
I can see the reason where fictional cases could be used here as teaching aid - based on real cases/ilnesses but simplified to make the learning points succinctly, but surely if the cases are being cited elsewhere someone should have raised the issue earlier?
Rather it would be the entire form of these short highlight articles that would make you keep searching for a proper citation, unless you're lazy or pressed for time.
I mean. Except if your pedestrian example does not reflect reality, then that is bad.
> One author of a case report was surprised to learn of the correction — because the case described in her article is true.
So they managed to mess up even the correction of their giant mess.
> correcting the correction "would be difficult."
I bet. That's why they should have got it right in the first place. I would be absolutely ballistic if they would be libelling my work like that.
Thought note that in the situation of the mislabeled real case, the formal solution is could be a retraction of the entire highlight article since it is against the (poorly implemented) policy to have a real case study.
Don't know how patient consent for being used in a case study works, did this author get a perpetual license, did they just copy something from another article they wrote, or from an article someone else wrote?
Maybe we should revisit the routine practice of infant male genital mutilation?
Obviously the poor labelling is bad, but 9 bad citations per year isn't the end of science and better labelling wouldn't discourage all the lazy authors who chose to cite these highlight articles, it'll just shift whos is to blame.
The real problem is hosting a review article about research that was retracted, and it sounds like they aren't moving very quickly on taking that piece down.
october8140•1h ago
contubernio•1h ago
ranger_danger•1h ago
observationist•1h ago
moi2388•1h ago
kergonath•1h ago
roywiggins•49m ago
ambicapter•36m ago
Rallen89•1h ago
>all or almost all were cases of very well recognized conditions [...] where a single case report would not generate any interest or ever be cited.
readthenotes1•1h ago
"The peer-reviewed articles don’t state anywhere the cases described are fictional."
Peer review by peers who are trained by non-replicable science is not helpful...