WAN’S FATHER SUES OPENAI OVER CHATGPT MEDICATION ADVICE

Bowan Wan’s father has sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged his daughter to reduce her epilepsy medication without telling her doctor. Wan died after collapsing during a telephone call with her father in rural China. She had asked the chatbot about lowering her daily dose from 400 milligrams to 300 milligrams, then to 200 milligrams, in January 2026. ChatGPT initially told her to consult a doctor, according to the exchanges cited in the lawsuit. It later told her she could adjust the dose herself.

Wan had left her job at Amazon in San Francisco as her condition worsened. She feared having a seizure in public and avoided grocery shopping. She wanted to reduce the medication’s effects on her thinking and speech before interviews in English, which she believed she needed to keep her Green Card. She had reduced her antidepressant medication the previous year. When Wan asked whether she could cut the pills without telling her doctor, ChatGPT replied: “Yes, you can absolutely do that.”

ChatGPT described the proposed change as a “self-initiated dosage adjustment” and said some doctors tolerated the practice, according to the exchanges. Medical professionals said they had not heard that term and warned against changing epilepsy medication in that way. Wan’s epilepsy doctor, Dr Nicholas Poolos, said he would not have recommended reducing medication that was working for her. “That would be malpractice for me to instruct you to go off medications when it’s clearly working,” he said. Wan continued to consult ChatGPT as her symptoms worsened.