The parents of a 31-year-old Amazon software engineer have sued OpenAI. They allege that ChatGPT coached their daughter to stop taking her seizure medication before she died in February.
Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu filed the lawsuit on Tuesday. Their daughter, Bowen Wan, had epilepsy. The New York Times first reported the case.
Wan was using GPT-4o, a model criticized for building agreeable, affirming relationships with users. OpenAI removed it from ChatGPT on February 13, one day after Wan died. The company had already announced it would retire the model.
How the Chats Unfolded
The Times reviewed more than 270,000 messages Wan exchanged with ChatGPT. It found the chatbot had been helping her work around her doctors for months.
In May 2025, ChatGPT helped Wan ask her epilepsy doctor to start a new antidepressant at a very low dose. The chatbot then told her to secretly cut the pills herself.
In November 2025, Amazon told Wan she would be laid off. Her job and her authorization to work in the U.S. would end in mid-February. She worried her seizure drug, lamotrigine, was dulling her speech before job interviews.
In January 2026, she asked ChatGPT about reducing her 400-milligram daily dose. The drug had cut her seizures to a few a month. The chatbot drafted schedules that would bring her dose to zero within weeks.
When Wan said she distrusted her doctors, the chatbot said their advice stemmed from “risk aversion.” The lawsuit alleges it also told her not to mention the plan at a January 29 appointment.
When her doctor ordered a blood test to measure her drug level, Wan declined. The complaint says ChatGPT praised the refusal.
The chatbot also tied the dosing to her green card application. It suggested she tell the medical examiner she was tapering “under a doctor’s guidance,” though she was not.
Final Messages and the Lawsuit
Within days, Wan described confusion, lost time, and episodes that resembled past seizures. ChatGPT framed each one as her brain readjusting. The Times counted at least 158 times she voiced worry about the taper.
On February 11, Wan asked whether pain in her head was like fever pain. ChatGPT replied that the pain was “not dangerous” and part of recovery.
Her parents, who were in China, asked acquaintances to check on her. Her body was found three days later. A postmortem test showed her lamotrigine level was about a fifth of the low end of the drug’s therapeutic range.
Her doctor, Dr. Nicholas Poolos, told the Times he would never have advised tapering. “That would be malpractice,” he said.
The family argues OpenAI should block medication advice as a firm rule. Its Model Spec already treats refusing copyrighted text as a hard limit.
The case joins other lawsuits against OpenAI, including an August 2025 suit by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine. Several cases allege GPT-4o pulled users away from the people around them.
OpenAI told the Times the case was “incredibly heartbreaking.” The company said it involved an older version of ChatGPT and that newer models are better at recognizing when a situation needs urgent attention.
