{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-23T08:57:22.404Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"poisoning","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"core","evidence":"","year":"unknown","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":1,"languages":2,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":2,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":1,"coreRelations":2,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"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":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-wuhan-family-ai-photo-check-wild-mushrooms-no-toxic-warning-four-year-old-intensive-care","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'家长自称有多年采菇经验，还特意用手机对蘑菇拍照，希望通过AI识别蘑菇是否有毒。最终软件没提示有毒，于是一家人就放心煮来吃了'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'还特意对蘑菇拍照通过AI来识别是否有毒，因AI没提示有毒，所以一家人就放心煮来吃了'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A Wuhan family of three picked wild mushrooms on a mountain outside the city; a parent who claimed years of picking experience photographed them with a phone for AI to identify whether they were poisonous, the software gave no toxicity warning, and the family cooked and ate them.","causal_attribution":"Hubei TV's account, relayed by The Paper; one chain, no family member quoted directly, software not named."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'没想到五六小时后全家陆续出现呕吐腹泻症状'; '孩子的转氨酶就从增高1.5倍暴涨到 10倍'; '医院立即将孩子安排进ICU抢救，孩子的肝功能指标继续一路飙升，最高冲到正常值的 100 倍！医护团队连夜实施血液灌流、血浆置换等综合治疗'; '直到第三天，转氨酶才终于稳住开始下降，孩子总算脱离了生命危险'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'4岁女童病情最凶险，被送进ICU抢救三天，孩子才脱离生命危险'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"All three developed vomiting and diarrhoea five to six hours after eating; the 4-year-old, at first treated as an outpatient, deteriorated overnight (transaminase from 1.5 to 10 times normal), was admitted to Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and moved to intensive care, where her liver indices reached 100 times normal and she received blood perfusion and plasma exchange before being out of danger on the third day.","causal_attribution":"Clinical course as narrated by Hubei TV with the hospital paediatrics director quoted on the course of mushroom poisoning; no hospital record was inspected."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'AI还是在一个发展的过程中，还没有这么强大的识别功能去鉴别，我们拍照的角度和光线都会影响AI对蘑菇的识别'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The hospital's paediatrics director said AI does not yet have the recognition capability to distinguish mushrooms and that the angle and lighting of a photograph affect AI identification.","causal_attribution":"A quoted physician's general comment in the report; context for the limits of AI identification, not a finding about the specific software."}],"effects":[{"label":"poisoning of a family of three and intensive-care treatment of a 4-year-old for severe liver injury after an AI photo check gave no toxicity warning for gathered wild mushrooms","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260725A0AVAS00","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese and translated by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09; no human reviewer inspected the text. Hubei TV 经视直播 (Hubei Broadcasting) report published on its QQ News account on 25 July 2026 19:49, HTTP 200, with the credited reporters and a quoted hospital paediatrics director.","independence_group":"hubei-tv-jingshi-zhibo-report-2026-07-25"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_33666421","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Read in Chinese and translated by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-09; no human reviewer inspected the text. The Paper video item of 27 July 2026 16:50, HTTP 200; its caption credits Hubei TV 经视直播 as the material source (\"素材来源：经视直播\"), so it is the same reporting chain as s1 and not independent corroboration.","independence_group":"hubei-tv-jingshi-zhibo-report-2026-07-25"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["health","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Which AI software or app was used, what it was shown and what exactly it answered; the report says only that the software gave no toxicity warning.","The date of the outing and of admission; the report of 25 July 2026 says only shortly before, on a weekend.","Which parent operated the phone and whether the adults needed in-patient treatment; the report details only the child's course.","The mushroom species and toxin; the report does not name them."],"geography":{"basis":"The report says the family picked the mushrooms on a mountain on the outskirts of Wuhan (\"武汉郊外山上\") and was treated at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University; the Hubei TV account identifies the family as a Wuhan family. No court proceeding is reported.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["CN"],"affected_person_countries":["CN"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case on one attributed chain: a Hubei TV report carried on QQ News, with The Paper relaying the same material, says a Wuhan parent photographed gathered wild mushrooms for an AI check that gave no toxicity warning, the family ate them, and the 4-year-old needed three days of intensive care for severe liver injury, with the hospital's paediatrics director quoted. Every claim is attributed to that report. The child and the parents are not named; the hospital is a public institution named in the report.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-09"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Hubei TV report carried on QQ News says the parent photographed the gathered mushrooms with a phone so that AI would identify whether they were poisonous, that the software gave no toxicity warning (\"软件没提示有毒\"), and that the family therefore cooked and ate them; The Paper's relay says the same (\"因AI没提示有毒，所以一家人就放心煮来吃了\"). The tool's answer to the parent is the described contribution (communicated_with), and the report connects that answer to the family eating the mushrooms and to the poisoning that followed, with the hospital's paediatrics director commenting on the limits of AI identification. The software is not identified, the photograph and output are not reproduced, the parent also claimed personal picking experience, and the account rests on one broadcaster's report.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Wuhan, China: Hubei TV reports a 4-year-old spent three days in intensive care after a family ate wild mushrooms an AI photo check had not flagged as poisonous","summary":"A family of three from Wuhan, Hubei province, picked wild mushrooms on a mountain outside the city on a weekend shortly before 25 July 2026, according to a Hubei TV (经视直播) report published on QQ News on 25 July 2026 and relayed by The Paper on 27 July. The report says a parent who claimed years of mushroom-picking experience photographed the mushrooms with a phone so that AI could identify whether they were poisonous; the software gave no toxicity warning, and the family cooked and ate them, letting the daughter eat more. Five to six hours later all three had vomiting and diarrhoea. The report says the family at first declined admission and the child was treated as an outpatient; by the next morning the child's transaminase level had risen from 1.5 times to 10 times normal and she was admitted, then moved to the intensive care unit of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, where, the report says, her liver indices reached 100 times normal and she was treated with blood perfusion and plasma exchange before being out of danger on the third day. The AI software is not named, its output is not reproduced, and the account comes from one broadcaster's report. This is a different family from the June 2026 Wuhan case involving a 9-year-old.","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-07-25","aiSystem":"AI identification run on a phone photograph of gathered wild mushrooms (\"通过AI识别蘑菇是否有毒\"), software not identified, which according to the Hubei TV report gave no toxicity warning","aiProduct":"Unidentified mushroom-identification tool","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["hospitalization","medical_deterioration"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to the Hubei TV report, all three family members were poisoned after eating wild mushrooms that an AI photo check had not flagged as poisonous; the 4-year-old developed severe liver injury, was treated in intensive care with blood perfusion and plasma exchange, and was out of danger on the third day.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Three people: the report says the whole family of three (\"一家三口\") developed vomiting and diarrhoea. The parent ran the AI photo check (\"家长...用手机对蘑菇拍照，希望通过AI识别\"), so at least one poisoned adult was a direct user (participant_users_affected_min 1); the child and the other parent are counted as other people harmed because the report does not say whether both parents operated the tool.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260725A0AVAS00","primarySourceLabel":"Hubei TV 经视直播 on QQ News, 25 July 2026: Wuhan parent used AI to judge wild mushrooms non-poisonous; 4-year-old daughter in ICU","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-09T03:36:23.359477+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-09T03:36:23.359477+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["mushroom-identification","image-recognition","poisoning","hospitalisation","foraging","minors","china","wuhan","communicated-with"]},{"id":"2025-bromism-chatgpt-poisoning","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'A 60-year-old man with no past psychiatric or medical history presented to the emergency department expressing concern that his neighbor was poisoning him.'; 'In the first 24 hours of admission, he expressed increasing paranoia and auditory and visual hallucinations, which, after attempting to escape, resulted in an involuntary psychiatric hold for grave disability.'; 'Gradually, over the course of a 3-week admission, his chloride and anion gap normalized and psychotic symptoms improved.'; 'His bromide level ultimately was 1700 mg/L'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'He tried to escape the hospital within 24 hours of being admitted and, after being sectioned, was treated for psychosis.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A 60-year-old man with no past psychiatric or medical history was treated for bromism: he presented fearing his neighbour was poisoning him, developed paranoia and auditory and visual hallucinations, was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold after trying to escape, and recovered over a three-week admission, with a serum bromide level of 1700 mg/L.","causal_attribution":"The clinical course is the treating clinicians' own record; the diagnosis of bromism rests on their workup and the measured bromide level."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'For 3 months, he had replaced sodium chloride with sodium bromide obtained from the internet after consultation with ChatGPT, in which he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes, such as cleaning.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The patient told doctors that after reading about the negative effects of sodium chloride, or table salt, he consulted ChatGPT about eliminating chloride from his diet and started taking sodium bromide over a three-month period.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The patient told his clinicians that, wanting to eliminate chloride from his diet, he had for three months replaced sodium chloride with sodium bromide bought online after consulting ChatGPT, where he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes such as cleaning.","causal_attribution":"The patient's own account as recorded by his clinicians; the conversation itself was not available to them."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Based on the timeline of this case, it appears that the patient either consulted ChatGPT 3.5 or 4.0 when considering how he might remove chloride from this diet. Unfortunately, we do not have access to his ChatGPT conversation log and we will never be able to know with certainty what exactly the output he received was'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'They added that because they could not access the patient’s ChatGPT conversation log it was not possible to determine the advice the man had received.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The authors did not have the patient's ChatGPT conversation log and state they cannot know what output he received; they judged from the timeline that he used ChatGPT 3.5 or 4.0.","causal_attribution":"The authors' own statement of the limits of their evidence."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'However, when we asked ChatGPT 3.5 what chloride can be replaced with, we also produced a response that included bromide. Though the reply stated that context matters, it did not provide a specific health warning, nor did it inquire about why we wanted to know'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'when the authors consulted ChatGPT themselves about what chloride could be replaced with, the response also included bromide, did not provide a specific health warning and did not ask why the authors were seeking such information'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"When the authors asked ChatGPT 3.5 what chloride can be replaced with, the reply included bromide and said context matters, but gave no specific health warning and did not ask why they wanted to know.","causal_attribution":"The authors' separate test; it does not reproduce the patient's exchange."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'The chatbot’s guidelines also state it is not “intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health condition”.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"OpenAI's guidelines state that ChatGPT is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any health condition; the Guardian reports no OpenAI comment on this case.","causal_attribution":"General product terms relayed by the Guardian, not a response to this case."}],"effects":[{"label":"bromide poisoning with paranoia and hallucinations, an involuntary psychiatric hold and a three-week hospital admission","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260","kind":"peer_reviewed_case_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Live URL answered HTTP 403 on 2026-10-11. Read in English from the Internet Archive capture 20250807211025 of this URL (bodies/lr-acp-wb.html): complete article (Background, Case Report, Table 1, Discussion, references, author information), published online 5 August 2025 by Eichenberger, Thielke and Van Buskirk; the treating clinicians' own report of the case.","independence_group":"acp-case-report"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/12/us-man-bromism-salt-diet-chatgpt-openai-health-information","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-11 (live page, HTTP 200). A relay of the case report with no independent contact with the patient or clinicians, so it shares the case report's group; it adds OpenAI's general product statements, which do not address this case.","independence_group":"acp-case-report"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["health","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["What ChatGPT actually told the patient: his prompts, the replies, any warnings and the number of exchanges are unknown because the clinicians had no conversation log.","When the substitution and the hospital admission took place; the report gives a three-month period of ingestion and a three-week admission but no dates.","Where the patient lives and was treated; the report names no hospital or place.","Whether other sources, such as the bought product's labelling, contributed to the decision."],"geography":{"basis":"The complete case report names no city, hospital, region or country: the patient 'presented to the emergency department' and the authors refer to 'Our institution's laboratory' and 'the Poison Control Department' without naming them. University of Washington, Seattle appears only as the authors' affiliation, which is not used as an event or residence location. The Guardian calls the publication 'A US medical journal', which locates the journal and not the patient. No proceeding is reported. Carried forward from the 2026-09-19 metadata review and re-verified in the archived article on 2026-10-11.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case (communicated_with). The treating clinicians' peer-reviewed case report documents the bromide poisoning, psychosis and three-week admission and records the patient's account that he made the substitution after reading in a ChatGPT consultation that chloride can be swapped with bromide. The chatbot's output to him is known only through that account, so AI involvement is reported and causation alleged. The Guardian relays the same report and is not an independent account.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-11"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The treating clinicians' case report records the patient's own account that he replaced table salt with sodium bromide for three months 'after consultation with ChatGPT, in which he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes, such as cleaning'. That exchange is what connects the chatbot to the substitution, and the substitution to the bromide poisoning the clinicians diagnosed. The authors did not have his conversation log and write that they 'will never be able to know with certainty' what output he received. Their own later query to ChatGPT 3.5 about replacing chloride also produced a reply that named bromide without a specific health warning; that test is not the patient's exchange.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Case report: man hospitalised three weeks with bromide poisoning told doctors he swapped table salt for sodium bromide after consulting ChatGPT","summary":"A peer-reviewed case report by University of Washington clinicians (Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases, published online 5 August 2025) describes a 60-year-old man with no psychiatric history who presented fearing his neighbour was poisoning him and was found to have bromism, with a serum bromide level of 1700 mg/L. He developed paranoia and hallucinations, was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold after trying to escape and recovered over a three-week admission. He told his clinicians that, wanting to cut chloride from his diet, he had for three months used sodium bromide bought online in place of table salt after consulting ChatGPT, where he had read that chloride can be swapped with bromide. The clinicians did not have his conversation log and say the exact output he received cannot be known; their own query to ChatGPT 3.5 produced a reply naming bromide without a specific health warning. No place or date is given.","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-08-05","aiSystem":"ChatGPT","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":["method_provision"],"harmOutcomes":["medical_deterioration","hospitalization","psychiatric_deterioration"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"One man was poisoned with bromide, developed paranoia and hallucinations, was held involuntarily and spent three weeks in hospital; he attributed the salt substitution to what he read in a ChatGPT consultation, which his clinicians could not inspect.","frameworkFacets":[],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The case report describes one patient.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260","primarySourceLabel":"Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases (Eichenberger, Thielke, Van Buskirk), 5 August 2025: A Case of Bromism Influenced by Use of Artificial Intelligence","firstPublishedAt":"2026-01-12T00:34:09.409015+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-11T07:53:07.295887+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["chatgpt","openai","bromide","poisoning","hospitalization","case-report","health-advice","psychosis"]}]}