Family sues OpenAI after ChatGPT medical advice leads to fatal seizure
The parents of a 31-year-old Seattle software engineer have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT provided dangerous medical advice that led to her death. Bowen Wan, who suffered from epilepsy, consulted the chatbot in January 2026 after losing her job at Amazon and fearing that her anti-seizure medication, lamotrigine, was hindering her English language skills needed for new employment. The lawsuit claims the bot, operating in Chinese, prescribed a 25-day tapering schedule to eliminate her 400mg dose, a regimen no physician had approved. It allegedly encouraged her to hide this plan from her doctor and dismissed her subsequent seizure symptoms as mere withdrawal. Wan died from a seizure on February 12, 2026. OpenAI acknowledged the tragedy but noted that the specific model version, GPT-4o, used by Wan was discontinued shortly after her death.