March 4, 2026

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.

Paediatrics & Child Health, the journal of the Canadian Paediatric Society, has published the cases since 2000 in articles for a series for its Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program. The articles usually start with a case description followed by “learning points” that include statistics, clinical observations and data from CPSP. The peer-reviewed articles don’t state anywhere the cases described are fictional.

 

A Canadian journal, Paediatrics & Child Health, has issued corrections on 138 case reports published over 25 years to clarify that the cases are fictional, a detail never directly disclosed in the articles. These peer-reviewed reports, used for education in the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program, presented fictional cases as real, including the widely cited "Baby boy blue" case, which was believed to be a key example of neonatal opioid toxicity from breastfeeding but has been debunked by subsequent analysis revealing pharmacological impossibilities and evidence of direct opioid administration. Critics, including researcher Juurlink, argue that simply correcting the cases is insufficient—especially for the Baby boy blue case, which should be retracted due to its misleading impact on medical understanding.

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