Hundreds of doctors have been caught in a scientific publishing fracas after a journal placed notes on 138 case reports warning they were fictional.

Paediatrics and Child Health, the journal of the Canadian Paediatric Society, says that the reports, published over 25 years, were designed as fictional vignettes for teaching. However, it has now admitted this was unclear to readers.

“All or almost all were cases of very well-recognised conditions — such as congenital syphilis, fetal alcohol syndrome, serious trauma from all-terrain vehicles, hepatitis C infection — where a single case would not generate any interest or ever be cited,” editor-in-chief Dr Joan Robinson told Retraction Watch.

The journal had responded after a New Yorker article, published in January, had argued various studies on infant poisonings from codeine transmitted via breastmilk published in a range of journals were completely wrong.