Not sure if it's in the exact same category, but one of the most devastating examples was a one paragraph entry in Letters to the Editor, published in 1980 in t

Not sure if it's in the exact same category, but one of the most devastating examples was a one paragraph entry in Letters to the Editor, published in 1980 in the New England Journal of Medicine, that I first heard about in the excellent Dopesick dramatisation. This unverified comment from a reader became legitimised as it morphed to a Journal citation, subsequently referenced in hundreds of first-gen papers, and who knows how many indirect references. It effectively opened the door to Purdue's marketing department. "In conclusion, we found that a five-sentence letter published in the Journal in 1980 was heavily and uncritically cited as evidence that addiction was rare with long-term opioid therapy. "We believe that this citation pattern contributed to the North American opioid crisis by helping to shape a narrative that allayed prescribers’ concerns about the risk of addiction associated with long-term opioid therapy." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1700150 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1700150