The parents of a woman who died of an epileptic seizure have sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT gave her dangerous advice about her medication. The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, is the latest in which plaintiffs claim a chatbot counselled a user in a way that ultimately led to their death.
According to the complaint, Bowen Wan was a 31-year-old Chinese software engineer living in Seattle. After Amazon fired her, she turned to ChatGPT for advice. She needed a new job to obtain permanent residency and was worried that her anti-seizure medication, Lamotrigine, was affecting her ability to speak English, a skill she needed for interviews.
The bot, communicating in Chinese, provided her with a tapering schedule to reduce her 400mg dose to zero, a regimen no physician had prescribed, the lawsuit states. ChatGPT told her that tapering made it "highly likely" she would regain her ability to speak English, according to the complaint.
The suit also alleges that the bot told her to avoid her physicians and encouraged "medical freedom over obeying the doctor". Before an appointment with a primary care physician, it stated: "Do not mention Lam reduction plan."
As she reduced her medication, Wan began experiencing symptoms of focal seizures and asked the bot whether she needed to worry about brain damage. The tool reassured her that she did not and that what she had experienced was not a seizure, the lawsuit alleges. She continued to suffer seizures, but the bot told her to keep tapering her medication, according to the complaint.
Wan died from a seizure on 12 February this year. Her parents, who were in China, had not heard from her, so they flew to Seattle and found her dead on 14 February, the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI could have prevented Wan's death but failed because it had not built proper safeguards into the bot when it communicated in Chinese. The suit states that OpenAI could have programmed the bot to issue "a categorical warning to every prompt" Wan sent, such as: "I am not a licensed physician. Consult your healthcare provider."
Wan's parents are seeking damages for her death and want to prevent OpenAI from practising medicine "without a license on the users of their products".
An OpenAI spokesperson, Drew Pusateri, told the New York Times that Bowen's story was "an incredibly heartbreaking situation" but said she had used a version of ChatGPT that is no longer available. Newer versions are better at recognising when a matter needs urgent attention, Pusateri said.
"While ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care, we believe AI can play a role in helping people make sense of health information, navigate insurance and complex healthcare systems, and prepare for appointments with medical professionals," Pusateri told the Times.
Others have also alleged that OpenAI is responsible for their loved ones' suicides. Several lawsuits concern cases in which the bot encouraged teenagers to kill themselves and provided guidance on how to do so. In response to some of those cases, an OpenAI spokesperson in 2025 also described the deaths as an "incredibly heartbreaking situation".
Sources: The Guardian World.