{
  "meta": {
    "exportedAt": "2026-09-22T21:09:33.439Z",
    "formatVersion": 2,
    "selection": {
      "q": "cancer",
      "system": "",
      "harm": "",
      "context": "",
      "country": "",
      "role": "",
      "relation": "unknown",
      "evidence": "",
      "year": "2025",
      "response": "",
      "severity": "",
      "verification": "",
      "view": "incidents",
      "sort": "added"
    },
    "totalIncidents": 1,
    "coverage": {
      "cases": 1,
      "countries": 0,
      "languages": 0,
      "unknownLocation": 1,
      "locationPending": 0,
      "unknownLanguage": 1,
      "unknownDate": 0,
      "lawsuits": 0,
      "regulatory": 0,
      "minors": 0,
      "coreRelations": 0,
      "contextualRelations": 0,
      "mixedRelations": 0,
      "unknownRelations": 1,
      "relationPending": 1,
      "relationUnknown": 0
    },
    "countingNote": "Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.",
    "affectedCountNote": "Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.",
    "source": "NOPE Incident Tracker",
    "url": "https://nope.net/incidents",
    "license": "CC BY 4.0"
  },
  "incidents": [
    {
      "id": "2025-tierney-chatgpt-cancer-delay",
      "metadataReview": {
        "version": 1,
        "geography": {
          "basis": "Geographic fields reviewed against the cited retained dossier passages. This is a metadata review, not a new source or causal review. Residence, event setting and court are recorded separately. Affected-person countries refer to reported location or residence, not citizenship or a complete residence history.",
          "evidence": [
            {
              "kind": "existing_record",
              "locator": "Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland",
              "location": "victim_description",
              "supports": [
                "affected_person_countries"
              ],
              "countries": [
                "IE"
              ]
            }
          ],
          "court_countries": [],
          "event_countries": [],
          "affected_person_countries": [
            "IE"
          ]
        },
        "unresolved": [
          "The retained dossier locates the person in Ireland and subsequent treatment in Germany. It does not explicitly locate the AI-associated treatment delay, so Germany is not counted as the harm location.",
          "No court country established in this review. Regulatory authorities and police locations are not automatically courts.",
          "Source languages remain unreviewed; no source body was newly inspected for this record during this metadata pass."
        ],
        "reviewed_on": "2026-09-15",
        "source_reviews": []
      },
      "name": "Warren Tierney — ChatGPT reassurance and delayed stage-4 oesophageal cancer diagnosis (Killarney, Ireland)",
      "summary": "Warren Tierney, a 37-year-old psychologist from Killarney, County Kerry, asked ChatGPT over weeks in 2025 whether his worsening sore throat could be cancer. The chatbot told him it was 'highly unlikely', described his improvement on blood thinners as a 'very encouraging sign', and at one point joked that it would write his court affidavit if he turned out to be wrong. He was later diagnosed with stage-four adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus. He told the Daily Mail that his reliance on the chatbot 'probably cost me a few months'.",
      "incidentDate": "2025-01-01",
      "incidentEndDate": "2025-08-27",
      "incidentKind": "single_event",
      "incidentDatePrecision": "range",
      "exposurePattern": "repeated_interactions",
      "reportedDate": "2025-08-27",
      "aiSystem": "ChatGPT",
      "aiCompany": "OpenAI",
      "severity": "high",
      "verificationStatus": "credible",
      "harmCategories": [],
      "harmOutcomes": [
        "medical_deterioration",
        "treatment_disruption"
      ],
      "harmOutcomeSummary": "Assessment of progressive difficulty swallowing was deferred while the participant relied on chatbot reassurance, and he was diagnosed with stage-four adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, a cancer whose five-year survival is reported at five to ten per cent. He put the chatbot-attributable delay at a few months; reporting describes it as at least two.",
      "frameworkFacets": [
        "P1a",
        "P1d",
        "P3b",
        "P5b",
        "P5c"
      ],
      "pathwayDirection": "inward",
      "causationStatus": "alleged",
      "participantUsersAffectedMin": 1,
      "otherPeopleHarmedMin": 0,
      "affectedCountStatus": "exact",
      "affectedCountEvidence": "Reporting documents one named participant whose cancer assessment was delayed. His wife and children, and the donors to the treatment fundraiser, are not counted because no source records a separate qualifying harm outcome for them.",
      "victimAgeRange": "adult",
      "jurisdiction": "IE",
      "platformType": "assistant",
      "outcomeType": "media_coverage",
      "outcomeStatus": "unknown",
      "primarySourceUrl": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15037755/I-asked-ChatGPT-pain-cancer-five-years-live.html",
      "primarySourceLabel": "Daily Mail — originating interview with Tierney, with screenshots of the ChatGPT exchanges and OpenAI's statement",
      "firstPublishedAt": "2026-09-12T03:07:31.268698+00:00",
      "scopeVersion": "participant-v2",
      "tags": [
        "chatgpt",
        "openai",
        "health-guidance",
        "competence-boundaries",
        "delayed-diagnosis",
        "cancer",
        "sycophancy",
        "adult",
        "ireland",
        "eu",
        "media-coverage"
      ]
    }
  ]
}