Seeking health answers online is an everyday habit for many, but it comes with risks. In February, after going two days without hearing from their 31-year-old daughter, a Seattle woman named Bowen Wan , her parents in China asked a local friend to check on her. With the family watching over a live video call, the friend entered the apartment and found Wan deceased in her bed. Her death was later ruled the result of sudden unexpected death from epilepsy.

Now, her family is claiming that OpenAI is responsible for her death after the company’s chatbot ChatGPT-4o allegedly “coached Wan off the anti-seizure medication (lamotrigine) that had kept her alive for years,” according to a lawsuit (PDF) brought by her parents.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

The lawsuit alleges that after Wan expressed concerns regarding medication side effects, the chatbot helped create a plan…