The more descriptive headline should have been the article's first sentence.
A Canadian journal has issued corrections on 138 case reports it published over the last 25 years to add a disclaimer: The cases described are fictional.
Yes, it certainly seems that the journal intended them to be true, and are now claiming they are fictional as a means of covering their ass. Probably many of them are largely or wholly accurate. They just can't or won't go back and sort which are which.
As far as I understood, they didn't want "real" cases 1:1 described anyway for fear of violating patient data privacy laws, just "real" data that's anonymized.
And now they found a paper where the case study in question was made up by the author, so they retracted it and are revisiting other papers, marking them as "fictional" as in "yes, we have the data, but the narrative around it was changed to protect privacy".
So the headline should be more along the lines of "Medical paper finds fraud, revisions the last 25 years and marks all questionable papers as 'fictional' until cleared."
Which is good procedure and quite a different narrative than what this headline is implying.
In many journals, there are case scenarios which are meant to teach. You get a hypothetical case with questions associated. In the pediatric journals I read, I have not seen a disclaimer that they are fictional, but I never took them to be actual case reports. It is just assumed.
Now, they will add a disclaimer that these scenarios are fictional.
Except all of them weren't fictional. They just didn't bother to fact check which ones were and which ones weren't. So now some of the true accounts are being "corrected" to say they are fictional. Such complete laziness.
Because that's apparently where we are as a society. We're all outraged at something every day, but most are too beaten down by work, health, money issues etc to care about something like this to do something.
We're outraged but apathetic, it's weird to see that oxymoron play out but here we are.
From the article it sounds like the journal made an ‘err on the side of caution‘ decision. They also have contributors whose case studies were real, and well documented, and who are now pissed that they’re being called fictional
I’m glad you agree it was worth a google. Might also be worth looking into “colloquial usage” while you’re over there bud. Check out prescriptivism vs descriptivism for extra credit. Language be crazy.
You can use a word wrong. And when you do, people who tell you you're wrong aren't being prescriptivist. They're descriptively saying the word was used wrong.
Why use the wrong word, tell somebody to google it and then make snide comments when they do? Was it all to use the words “colloquial”, “prescriptivism” and “descriptivism”? Do you think it makes you sound smart? I too took 8th grade English.
This happened to me the other day. I said that a certain political move was to try to disenfranchise people. And someone goes “no, it’s about voting!!” And I was like “Yes. Disenfranchisement.”
>The corrections come following a January article in New Yorker magazine that mentioned one of the reports — “Baby boy blue,” a case published in 2010 describing an infant who showed signs of opioid exposure via breast milk while his mother was taking acetaminophen with codeine. The New Yorker article made public an admission by one of the coauthors that the case was made up.
>“Based on the New Yorker article, we made the decision to add a correction notice to all 138 publications drawing attention to CPSP studies and surveys to clarify that the cases are fictional,” Joan Robinson, editor-in-chief of Paediatrics & Child Health, told Retraction Watch. “From now on, the body of the case report will specifically state that the case is fictional.”
>The move came as a surprise to David Juurlink, professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Toronto, who has spent over a decade looking into the claim that infants can receive a meaningful or even lethal dose of opioids via breast milk when their mothers take acetaminophen with codeine. The first such case, published in the Lancet in 2006 by pharmacologist Gideon Koren, was the centerpiece of the New Yorker article. (The Lancet case report now bears an expression of concern.) Koren used that case to claim for years that codeine, which gets metabolized to morphine in the body, can pose a lethal risk to breastfeeding infants.
>Follow-up work by Juurlink and others has found the doses claimed in the Lancet report — as well as in two other articles, both now retracted, Koren and colleagues wrote about the case — to be pharmacologically unlikely. As the New Yorker reported, a review of the autopsy data and other evidence points to the baby having been given the pain medication directly rather than having been exposed to the drug through breast milk.
>The Baby boy blue case is “the only such case study, aside from the Lancet case report and the two now-retracted descriptions of the same case in Canadian Family Physician and Canadian Pharmacists Journal,” Juurlink said. “It is the most compelling published description of neonatal opioid toxicity from breastfeeding. And it is wrong.”
>Juurlink said he doesn’t think a correction is sufficient for this case in particular. “The paper should obviously be retracted,” he told us. “It’s a fictional case portrayed as real and its scientific underpinnings have collapsed, yet it perpetuates them.”
"The journal decided when it first started publishing the article type “that the cases should be fictional to protect patient confidentiality,” [editor-in-chief of Paediatrics & Child Health] Robinson told us. “Apart from the case that led to the recent New Yorker article, all or almost all were cases of very well recognized conditions (such as congenital syphilis, fetal alcohol syndrome, serious trauma from ATVs, hepatitis C infection) where a single case report would not generate any interest or ever be cited.”
WTF? They do not seem to understand the difference between "fictionalized," in which identifying names and details may be changed, and "fiction," which is invented. Disgraceful.
Several-Opposite-746 | 21 hours ago
The more descriptive headline should have been the article's first sentence.
A Canadian journal has issued corrections on 138 case reports it published over the last 25 years to add a disclaimer: The cases described are fictional.
gaue__phat | 20 hours ago
Yes, it certainly seems that the journal intended them to be true, and are now claiming they are fictional as a means of covering their ass. Probably many of them are largely or wholly accurate. They just can't or won't go back and sort which are which.
bstabens | 17 hours ago
But they do go back and sort them?
As far as I understood, they didn't want "real" cases 1:1 described anyway for fear of violating patient data privacy laws, just "real" data that's anonymized.
And now they found a paper where the case study in question was made up by the author, so they retracted it and are revisiting other papers, marking them as "fictional" as in "yes, we have the data, but the narrative around it was changed to protect privacy".
So the headline should be more along the lines of "Medical paper finds fraud, revisions the last 25 years and marks all questionable papers as 'fictional' until cleared."
Which is good procedure and quite a different narrative than what this headline is implying.
Impossible-Ship5585 | 17 hours ago
Its like movies.
"Based on real events"
"Any links to real persons living or dead are not true"
neatomosquito2020 | 8 hours ago
In many journals, there are case scenarios which are meant to teach. You get a hypothetical case with questions associated. In the pediatric journals I read, I have not seen a disclaimer that they are fictional, but I never took them to be actual case reports. It is just assumed.
Now, they will add a disclaimer that these scenarios are fictional.
thiscouldbemassive | 21 hours ago
Except all of them weren't fictional. They just didn't bother to fact check which ones were and which ones weren't. So now some of the true accounts are being "corrected" to say they are fictional. Such complete laziness.
DocHolidayPhD | 21 hours ago
This is abhorrent. How can any journal get away with this and not be blackballed for having a known history of doing this?!
Anxious_cactus | 21 hours ago
Because that's apparently where we are as a society. We're all outraged at something every day, but most are too beaten down by work, health, money issues etc to care about something like this to do something.
We're outraged but apathetic, it's weird to see that oxymoron play out but here we are.
haverchuck22 | 20 hours ago
well said
gin_possum | 20 hours ago
From the article it sounds like the journal made an ‘err on the side of caution‘ decision. They also have contributors whose case studies were real, and well documented, and who are now pissed that they’re being called fictional
ResponsibilityOk8967 | 17 hours ago
Why would they mingle the two? Just nonsensical.
Morriganx3 | 18 hours ago
Well, they have one that was real, anyway.
gin_possum | 15 hours ago
Like the joke about the cow and mathematician :)
HobbyMedia | 21 hours ago
Blacklisted.
wishiwasholden | 20 hours ago
Or blackballed, synonyms. Give it a Google, it’s worth a Google.
HobbyMedia | 19 hours ago
You should take your own advice. See below; direct from Google. But hey, you could still take your own advice and Google the meaning of synonym.
Blackballed - reject (someone, usually a candidate applying to become a member of a private club), typically by means of a secret ballot.
Blacklisted- a list of people or things that are regarded as unacceptable or untrustworthy and should be excluded or avoided.
wishiwasholden | 18 hours ago
I’m glad you agree it was worth a google. Might also be worth looking into “colloquial usage” while you’re over there bud. Check out prescriptivism vs descriptivism for extra credit. Language be crazy.
WaitForItTheMongols | 14 hours ago
You can use a word wrong. And when you do, people who tell you you're wrong aren't being prescriptivist. They're descriptively saying the word was used wrong.
bambi54 | 11 hours ago
Why use the wrong word, tell somebody to google it and then make snide comments when they do? Was it all to use the words “colloquial”, “prescriptivism” and “descriptivism”? Do you think it makes you sound smart? I too took 8th grade English.
DocHolidayPhD | 20 hours ago
Thank you for getting to this before me... I love being corrected by people who don't know what they're talking about...
LezzyGopher | 20 hours ago
This happened to me the other day. I said that a certain political move was to try to disenfranchise people. And someone goes “no, it’s about voting!!” And I was like “Yes. Disenfranchisement.”
wishiwasholden | 20 hours ago
Yeah I almost just commented “R/confidentlyincorrect”lol. Sick handle btw
zephito | 18 hours ago
>The corrections come following a January article in New Yorker magazine that mentioned one of the reports — “Baby boy blue,” a case published in 2010 describing an infant who showed signs of opioid exposure via breast milk while his mother was taking acetaminophen with codeine. The New Yorker article made public an admission by one of the coauthors that the case was made up.
>“Based on the New Yorker article, we made the decision to add a correction notice to all 138 publications drawing attention to CPSP studies and surveys to clarify that the cases are fictional,” Joan Robinson, editor-in-chief of Paediatrics & Child Health, told Retraction Watch. “From now on, the body of the case report will specifically state that the case is fictional.”
>The move came as a surprise to David Juurlink, professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Toronto, who has spent over a decade looking into the claim that infants can receive a meaningful or even lethal dose of opioids via breast milk when their mothers take acetaminophen with codeine. The first such case, published in the Lancet in 2006 by pharmacologist Gideon Koren, was the centerpiece of the New Yorker article. (The Lancet case report now bears an expression of concern.) Koren used that case to claim for years that codeine, which gets metabolized to morphine in the body, can pose a lethal risk to breastfeeding infants.
>Follow-up work by Juurlink and others has found the doses claimed in the Lancet report — as well as in two other articles, both now retracted, Koren and colleagues wrote about the case — to be pharmacologically unlikely. As the New Yorker reported, a review of the autopsy data and other evidence points to the baby having been given the pain medication directly rather than having been exposed to the drug through breast milk.
>The Baby boy blue case is “the only such case study, aside from the Lancet case report and the two now-retracted descriptions of the same case in Canadian Family Physician and Canadian Pharmacists Journal,” Juurlink said. “It is the most compelling published description of neonatal opioid toxicity from breastfeeding. And it is wrong.”
>Juurlink said he doesn’t think a correction is sufficient for this case in particular. “The paper should obviously be retracted,” he told us. “It’s a fictional case portrayed as real and its scientific underpinnings have collapsed, yet it perpetuates them.”
Oh my God.
Bloodthistle | 15 hours ago
Whomever faked this research needs to be in Jail.
meanmagpie | 15 hours ago
Of course it’s something that would place further scrutiny and blame on mothers, resulting in their unnecessary suffering. Of course.
Material-Scale4575 | 20 hours ago
"The journal decided when it first started publishing the article type “that the cases should be fictional to protect patient confidentiality,” [editor-in-chief of Paediatrics & Child Health] Robinson told us. “Apart from the case that led to the recent New Yorker article, all or almost all were cases of very well recognized conditions (such as congenital syphilis, fetal alcohol syndrome, serious trauma from ATVs, hepatitis C infection) where a single case report would not generate any interest or ever be cited.”
WTF? They do not seem to understand the difference between "fictionalized," in which identifying names and details may be changed, and "fiction," which is invented. Disgraceful.
12kdaysinthefire | 20 hours ago
This sounds insanely illegal and my money is on no one getting investigated, tried or held accountable.
akaikem | 14 hours ago
By who? The science police?
AnthillOmbudsman | 7 hours ago
A regular prosecutor will do.
costafilh0 | 19 hours ago
"snap back to reality, ops, there goes gravity"
HyperSpaceSurfer | 21 hours ago
Is this just legal?
river_tree_nut | 20 hours ago
Freakonomics did a 2 part series on this. It's amazing how rampant it is.
shhhhh_h | 13 hours ago
What the fuck!??? What the actual fuck?!!! That’s a reputable journal. I mean not anymore but what. The. Fuck.