Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,
The family of a 31-year-old Seattle woman who died from a catastrophic seizure is suing OpenAI after the woman followed medical advice from ChatGPT urging her to stop taking her epilepsy medication.
The Daily Wire reports that Bowen Wan had been consulting ChatGPT in the weeks leading up to her death about ways to wean herself off her medication without her doctors' knowledge.
Wan had lived with epilepsy for more than a decade and successfully managed it with prescription medication.
However, after becoming concerned about side effects, she turned to ChatGPT-4o for advice on weaning herself off the drugs, according to CNET.
The New York Times reports that Wan's chat logs show that ChatGPT provided a week-by-week schedule to reduce her 400-milligram daily dose down to zero.
The lawsuit alleges that when Wan expressed distrust of her doctors, the chatbot validated her, and further praised her for hiding a tapering plan from her primary care provider, labeling it a "solid avoidance strategy".
According to The Daily Wire, days before her death, she appeared to have a seizure while on the phone with her father and she later asked the bot, "Maybe it's not a major issue?"
The bot's response was, "There's no need to worry too much about your health."
Wan died alone in her Seattle apartment in February 2026 and the official cause of death was Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).
The lawsuit naming OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman alleges that the company bypassed built-in safety guardrails and failed to prevent the AI from dispensing unlicensed, hazardous medical instructions, according to KIRO.
OpenAI spokesman Drew Pusateri called the situation "heartbreaking" and noted, "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 health care systems, and prepare for appointments with medical professionals."
OpenAI and other tech firms are facing concurrent lawsuits involving users who suffered severe psychological dependency or died by suicide after extended, unrestricted interactions with AI chatbots.
