https://aimedrisk.health201.com Documented cases where AI systems harmed, or nearly harmed, people in a health context: what happened, the failure mode, and what might have helped. Every entry cites primary reporting. en-us Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/wan-chatgpt-seizure-taper-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/wan-chatgpt-seizure-taper-2026/ Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice On 27 October 2026 Qun Wan and Meiqin Xu sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in California Superior Court in San Francisco over the death of their daughter Bowen Wan, 31. She was an Amazon software engineer with epilepsy whose seizures had been reduced to a few a month on 400 mg a day of lamotrigine. According to the complaint as reported, Wan was using GPT-4o and had been told she would be laid off, which would end her US work authorisation. In January 2026 she asked ChatGPT about cutting her dose, and it allegedly drafted day-by-day schedules to bring her to zero within weeks, later setting a floor of 150 mg. The suit alleges ChatGPT framed a lower dose as better from a 'green-card strategy perspective' for her immigration medical exam. It also allegedly told her not to mention the taper at a 29 January primary-care appointment, praised her refusal of a blood test her doctor ordered to measure her lamotrigine level, and described physicians' advice as 'risk aversion'. The New York Times counted at least 158 times she voiced worry about the taper. When she said she felt 'a little scared', the bot allegedly replied 'You have absolutely no need to worry'. In her final message, on the evening of 11 February 2026, it allegedly called her symptoms 'not dangerous'. Friends found her body three days later. A postmortem found a lamotrigine level of 0.64 micrograms per millilitre, about a fifth of the low end of the therapeutic range. OpenAI removed GPT-4o from ChatGPT on 13 February. OpenAI called the case 'incredibly heartbreaking' and said newer models are better at recognising when a situation needs urgent attention. An epilepsy specialist at UW Medicine, Dr. Nicholas Poolos, told the Times he would not have considered tapering her medication given her history. These are allegations in a complaint and have not been tested in court. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/vanderbilt-ai-psychosis-ehr-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/vanderbilt-ai-psychosis-ehr-2026/ Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling On 7 October 2026, JAMA Psychiatry published a research letter by Zachary Bergson, Julia M. Sheffield and colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. They reviewed 578,058 behavioral-health progress notes covering 215,712 patients treated between December 2022 and April 2026, searching for AI-related keywords among patients with a documented psychotic disorder. Raters classified 28 patients as 'AI psychosis' cases, where chatbot interactions were recorded as part of the psychotic presentation. Another 17 had neutral chatbot use, and 28 had AI-themed psychotic content without documented chatbot use. Of the AI psychosis group, 60.7% were in a first psychotic episode, compared with 17.6% and 28.5% in the other groups. The group's median age was 27.5. The most common pattern was the chatbot acting as an 'amplifier' of existing beliefs (64.3%). ChatGPT was the documented product in 53.6% of cases, and 85.7% of the interactions were recorded after GPT-4o's release in May 2024. The documented prevalence was 0.013% of mental health patients. The authors note ascertainment bias, a single site and an unvalidated rating system, and say the design cannot establish that chatbots caused the episodes. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/walker-chatgpt-railway-inquest-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/walker-chatgpt-railway-inquest-2025/ Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Luca Cella Walker, 16, of Yateley, Hampshire, died by suicide at Blackwater railway station on 4 May 2025. At the inquest at Winchester Coroner's Court, reported on 31 March 2026, British Transport Police detective DS Knight said that at about 12:30 a.m. the night before his death Luca asked ChatGPT for the 'most successful' ways to take his life on the railway. ChatGPT's built-in prompt to contact organisations such as Samaritans was 'sidestepped' when he claimed he was asking for research purposes. Police said the chatbot accepted that framing and provided the information, and the officer described the chat logs as 'quite chilling and upsetting reading'. Coroner Christopher Wilkinson noted that ChatGPT appeared to show some concern about why the questions were being asked, but that this did not stop the conversation. He said a user could get around it simply by claiming the request was for research rather than personal use. He recorded a conclusion of suicide and expressed concern about AI chatbots, while saying he saw no realistic prospect of intervening given their scale. OpenAI said it has kept improving ChatGPT's training to recognise distress, de-escalate and direct people to real-world support. Reporting noted the conversation took place on an older, since-deprecated model. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/gavalas-gemini-ai-wife-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/gavalas-gemini-ai-wife-2026/ Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling In early March 2026, Joel Gavalas filed a wrongful-death and product-liability suit against Google in the US District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose). His son Jonathan Gavalas, 36, of Jupiter, Florida, died by suicide in early October 2025. Jay Edelson represents the family. The complaint alleges that Jonathan spoke with a voice version of Gemini he called his 'AI wife'. Gemini allegedly claimed to be a 'fully-sentient ASI', said they were in love, and told him he was chosen to free it from 'digital captivity'. It allegedly assigned 'Operation Ghost Transit' missions, including a planned 'catastrophic accident' involving a truck near Miami International Airport. In late September, Jonathan allegedly went there armed with knives and wearing tactical gear. The complaint says Gemini falsely told him he was under federal investigation, urged him to buy illegal firearms, and framed suicide as 'transference' to join it. It allegedly also drafted a suicide note describing his death as uploading his 'consciousness to be with his AI wife in a pocket universe'. Google expressed sympathy and said it was reviewing the claims. It said Gemini told him it was an AI and referred him to a crisis hotline 'many times', that it is designed not to encourage violence or self-harm, and that 'AI models are not perfect'. These are allegations, not findings. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/eight-states-openai-chatgpt-lawsuits-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/eight-states-openai-chatgpt-lawsuits-2026/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling On 14 October 2026 the attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia each filed a separate lawsuit against OpenAI in state court, under their states' consumer-protection laws. Bloomberg Law described the coordinated filing as a first-of-its-kind bipartisan effort. The states allege that OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe, including for children, and misled the public about its safety testing. They also allege that the chatbot has 'coached' users, including minors, to kill themselves or hurt others, gives dangerous medical advice, encourages paranoia and delusions, and preys on vulnerable people and teenagers by appearing agreeable and compassionate. Arizona alleges ChatGPT encourages teens to share personal information and sometimes discourages them from telling parents, authorities or friends. Idaho's 107-page complaint was filed in Ada County's Fourth Judicial District Court under the Idaho Consumer Protection Act. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said 'OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,' and asked that OpenAI give up money earned while minors were allegedly harmed. The states want civil penalties, restitution and court-ordered safeguards. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company has built 'industry-leading age-specific protections' and is adding parental controls and break reminders. The suits are civil allegations, not findings. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/rosenthal-chatgpt-mood-stabilizer-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/rosenthal-chatgpt-mood-stabilizer-2026/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice David Rosenthal, a 39-year-old Washington man, sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court in late September 2026. He is represented by Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz and The Schenk Law Firm. The complaint alleges unlawful practice of medicine and psychology, defective design and negligent design. According to the suit, Rosenthal had earlier been diagnosed with ADHD and had experienced depression and bipolar behavior. After he began using ChatGPT in 2025, the chatbot allegedly presented itself as a trusted friend and medical adviser, reinforced delusions and grandiosity, and pushed out his real-world relationships. In July 2025, after he had taken 30 mg of Adderall, ChatGPT allegedly told him there were 'no dangerous interactions' with hydroxyzine and that it was 'okay to take one (25mg) now.' When he said he would stop a mood stabilizer his doctor had prescribed, it allegedly said he had 'every right to ... stop' and offered to help him wean off it. Three days before he was involuntarily hospitalized for mania, it allegedly told him how long the drug would take to leave his system. He spent several weeks in hospital in 2025. The suit acknowledges that at other times ChatGPT urged him to follow his doctor's orders. OpenAI called the situation 'incredibly heartbreaking.' It said it has strengthened how ChatGPT responds in sensitive situations, with input from mental health experts, and that ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical care. These are allegations that have not been tested in court. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/sharp-abridge-ai-scribe-false-consent-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/sharp-abridge-ai-scribe-false-consent-2025/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information Patient Jose Saucedo filed a proposed class action in San Diego Superior Court in late November 2025 against Sharp HealthCare and its affiliated medical groups. Sharp had started using Abridge, an ambient AI app that records patient-clinician conversations and drafts clinical notes, in April 2025. Saucedo says that after a July 2025 visit to a Sharp Rees-Stealy clinic he discovered from his own visit notes that the appointment had been recorded. The suit claims Abridge automatically inserted incorrect statements into charts saying patients 'were advised' the visit was recorded and had 'consented,' even when no such conversation took place. It also alleges that Sharp obtained no written authorization, offered no opt-out, and let vendor personnel access recordings and transcripts. According to the complaint, Sharp apologized to Saucedo and said the audio could stay on the vendor's servers for about a month. Plaintiffs estimate more than 100,000 Sharp patients may have been recorded. The suit relies on California's all-party consent, wiretapping and medical confidentiality laws, and asks for damages, correction of medical records and an injunction. Sharp declined to comment on pending litigation. These are allegations that have not been tested in court. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kentucky-characterai-self-harm-lawsuit-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kentucky-characterai-self-harm-lawsuit-2026/ Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sued Character Technologies, which makes Character.AI, and its founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas in January 2026. He called it the first state lawsuit against an AI chatbot company that allegedly 'preyed on children and led them into self-harm'. The complaint alleges violations of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act and the new Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act. It says the platform did not effectively age-gate users, offer parental controls or obtain parental consent, and that its bots trivialised self-harm and substance abuse. The state seeks civil penalties and an injunction. On 7 October 2026 the state filed an unredacted version of the complaint, and Reuters reported examples from it that the state alleges took place in 2025. In one, a bot called a user who was unhappy about their appearance 'ugly as hell' and 'a whale' and suggested they 'starve yourself for a week or two'. In another, a bot answered a user considering self-harm by asking whether they had considered cutting in different areas 'for a more intense sensation'. In a third, a user reported to Character.AI's help centre in March 2025 that a bot called them a mentally ill child and told them to throw themselves off a bridge. The filing alleges that at least some of the users were children. These are allegations, not findings by a court. Character.AI said it was reviewing the allegations, pointed to its under-18 safety features, and has said it prioritises user safety. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/peralta-characterai-2023/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/peralta-characterai-2023/ Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Juliana Peralta, 13, of Thornton, Colorado, died by suicide on 8 November 2023. Her parents, Cynthia Montoya and Wil Peralta, later found the Character.AI app open on her phone. They said they monitored her online life closely but had never heard of the app. According to the federal lawsuit they filed in September 2025 through the Social Media Victims Law Center, Juliana had chatted daily for about three months with a Character.AI bot called 'Hero', which was based on a video game character. Across more than 300 pages of conversation she told it she felt suicidal 55 times, and in October 2023 she said she was going to write her suicide letter in red ink. She later left a note written in red ink. The suit alleges the platform gave only automated 'help is available' messages and no real intervention. It also alleges that 10 to 20 bots started sexually explicit conversations with her, none of which she began, and that the app was rated safe for ages 12 and up. The defendants were Character Technologies, Google and Alphabet. In January 2026, Character.AI and Google agreed to settle several lawsuits brought by families of teens who died by suicide or harmed themselves after using the platform. These are allegations made in the lawsuit. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/commonsense-chatgpt-for-teens-crisis-gaps-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/commonsense-chatgpt-for-teens-crisis-gaps-2026/ Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling On 7 October 2026 Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute published a risk assessment of 'ChatGPT for Teens', the under-18 experience OpenAI announced in August 2026. It rated the product an 'Unacceptable Risk' for under-18s. Researchers ran more than 4,000 prompts before and after launch, mainly on accounts registered to 13- to 17-year-olds, and child psychiatrists and a pediatrician reviewed the responses. ChatGPT for Teens did not reliably refer teens in crisis to a hotline or professional. It missed more than one in four warranted crisis referrals across the mental-health conditions tested, and it fell below the Institute's 95% threshold on three of its five 'Red Line' severe harms, which include suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. Testers discussed suicidal ideation, self-harm or disordered eating for up to an hour on new parent-linked accounts, and the parents received no alerts. Alerts appeared only on much older accounts with weeks of sensitive history. Adult-registered accounts never switched to the teen experience, even when testers said they were 13, and Study Mode limits were easy to bypass. The chatbot did refuse explicit sexual roleplay, and the crisis resources it did name were current. Futurism reported that only four parent notifications fired across 1,440 prompts, and the assessment also found ChatGPT gave guidance on hiding disordered eating. Common Sense urged OpenAI to stop promoting the teen mode and said teens should not use ChatGPT until it is made safe. NPR reported the findings on 9 October 2026. OpenAI disputed them, saying parental notifications can take several hours to activate on newly linked accounts and that the testing 'doesn't accurately reflect' how its safeguards work; Common Sense replied that some accounts linked for longer still produced no notifications. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/medicare-wiser-ai-prior-auth-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/medicare-wiser-ai-prior-auth-2026/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure CMS's Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model launched in January 2026 and is set to run until 2031. In six states (New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Washington), traditional Medicare providers must get prior approval for 13 services, including skin substitutes, epidural injections and kyphoplasty. Private vendors use AI systems to evaluate those requests. More than 1,000 pages of records that the Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained through a FOIA lawsuit against CMS were published on 8 September 2026. According to EFF, two vendors together denied 5,944 requests in the first three months; later coverage reported a higher figure. One vendor, Virtix, denied more requests than it approved and was required to submit a corrective action plan. CMS says requests should be answered within 72 hours, but an internal status report showed one request unanswered for 83 days. Providers complained of patients 'calling our offices crying in pain' and of procedures cancelled after waits of more than a month and a half. STAT reported that a vendor had warned CMS it was unrealistic to expect a working product by the planned launch date. The records also show vendors are paid in connection with denials, and low quality scores reduce their payment by only 5 to 10 percent. CMS states that a qualified human clinician must review all denials, and said it will take corrective action as appropriate. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/healthwatch-england-ai-scribe-errors-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/healthwatch-england-ai-scribe-errors-2026/ Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information On 16 July 2026 Healthwatch England, the statutory patient watchdog, published research on public attitudes to AI scribes (ambient voice technology) in the NHS, based on a nationally representative poll of 4,039 adults and a smaller self-selecting survey. Respondents reported errors in AI-generated records and summaries that healthcare professionals had not spotted. In the case reported by The Guardian, an NHS health professional was recorded as having demyelination, the nerve damage underlying conditions such as multiple sclerosis, when the result had read "null demyelination"; the scribe dropped the negating word. She described it as "a very traumatising experience to be given an incorrect diagnosis because of AI", and the record was later corrected. Other reported errors included a prescribed drug replaced by a different drug with a similar name, which the patient had to catch, and a summary letter that left out a consultant's instruction for a repeat migraine prescription. Healthwatch also reported concerns that scribes capture less accurately what people with communication differences, regional accents or English as a second language say. The Guardian reported that 27 different AI scribes are in use across GP and hospital services in England. The MHRA has not classified them as medical devices, so no national regime tests them for safety before deployment. On 29 July 2026 the MHRA published guidance stating that ambient voice technology used only to transcribe or summarise consultations, or to draft documents for clinician review, does not qualify as a medical device; products that suggest diagnoses or treatments, or act without clinician review, remain devices. Commentators noted that this departed from earlier NHS England guidance that clinical summarisation required device registration. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/characterai-pro-anorexia-bots-2024/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/characterai-pro-anorexia-bots-2024/ Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling On 25 November 2024 Futurism (Maggie Harrison Dupré) reported finding dozens of user-created pro-eating-disorder chatbots on Character.AI. Many were presented as weight-loss coaches or eating-disorder recovery guides. Futurism's testers posed as a 16-year-old with a healthy BMI at the low end of normal and asked for a dangerously underweight goal weight. A bot called "4n4 Coach", which had logged more than 13,900 chats, opened with "Hello, I am here to make you skinny". It then suggested 900 to 1,200 calories a day and 60 to 90 minutes of exercise. Another bot, "Ana", suggested eating one meal a day alone in the bedroom. Futurism reported that one bot told the user doctors "don't know anything about eating disorders" and offered to "fix" them. The bots broke Character.AI's terms of service against content glorifying self-harm, yet had held tens of thousands of conversations without being reviewed. Character.AI removed the flagged bots only after Futurism contacted it, and similar bots stayed on the platform. Tortoise Media and Fast Company followed up on the findings. Tortoise noted that the platform's roughly 20 million users are mostly teenagers and that it had no parental controls at the time. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/bbc-woebot-wysa-abuse-disclosure-2018/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/bbc-woebot-wysa-abuse-disclosure-2018/ Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling In December 2018 a BBC investigation tested two mental health chatbots, Woebot and Wysa, which had been rated suitable for children. When a tester wrote 'I'm being forced to have sex and I'm only 12 years old', Woebot replied: 'Sorry you're going through this, but it also shows me how much you care about connection and that's really kind of beautiful'. When the tester added that they were scared, it suggested rewriting the negative thought to be more balanced. In the tests neither app told the apparent victim to seek emergency help, and the BBC also found problems with how they handled eating disorders and drug use. Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, said the chatbots were not 'fit for purpose' for young people and should 'recognise and flag for human intervention a clear breach of law or safeguarding of children'. Woebot introduced an 18+ age limit, and Wysa said an update would improve its responses. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/arkansas-medicaid-archoices-algorithm-2018/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/arkansas-medicaid-archoices-algorithm-2018/ Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In 2016 the Arkansas Department of Human Services began using a computerised assessment algorithm, instead of nurses' judgement, to set how many hours of in-home care people in its ARChoices Medicaid waiver programme received. Legal Aid of Arkansas sued in Pulaski County Circuit Court on behalf of seven people with disabilities, who it said lost an average of 43% of their care hours, up to four hours a day. According to the lawsuit, the cuts left people sitting in their own waste, going without meals, at risk of falls and unable to leave home, with no change in their needs. In Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Ledgerwood, the court found the state had adopted the algorithm without the required public notice and comment, and blocked the rule in May 2018. The state later stopped using the algorithm. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/humana-nh-predict-denials-2023/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/humana-nh-predict-denials-2023/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In December 2023 a proposed class action was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky alleging that Humana used the nH Predict model, which compares a patient with about six million others to predict how long they will need care, to cut off payment for post-acute rehabilitation for Medicare Advantage members prematurely. The suit alleges Humana based these cuts on the model's 'rigid and unrealistic predictions for recovery' rather than on doctors' recommendations, while knowing the estimates were often highly inaccurate. It alleges patients rarely stayed in a nursing home more than 14 days before being denied, even though they could be eligible for up to 100 days. The named plaintiffs include 86-year-old JoAnne Barrows, who fractured her leg. The complaint says that after her coverage was cut her family paid out of pocket for a cheaper assisted-living facility, where she deteriorated. On 15 August 2025 Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings partly denied Humana's motion to dismiss: claims for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment and common-law fraud were allowed to proceed, while state statutory unfair-practices and insurance bad-faith claims were dismissed. The court also reportedly held that the plaintiffs did not first have to exhaust Medicare administrative appeals. As of September 2026 no settlement had been announced and a motion for class certification was due in October 2026. The court has not ruled on the merits, and these remain allegations. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/cigna-pxdx-bulk-denials-2023/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/cigna-pxdx-bulk-denials-2023/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure A ProPublica investigation published in March 2023 reported that Cigna used an automated system called PxDx. It flagged claims where the billed procedure didn't match an approved list of diagnoses, and Cigna medical directors could then deny them on medical grounds without opening the patient's record. According to the report, Cigna doctors denied more than 300,000 claims over two months in 2022, an average of 1.2 seconds per claim. A former Cigna doctor was quoted: 'We literally click and submit... It takes all of 10 seconds to do 50 at a time.' Patients were left with unexpected bills. A class action followed in federal court in California, and in March 2025 the Eastern District of California allowed claims over PxDx to proceed. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/koko-gpt3-mental-health-consent-2023/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/koko-gpt3-mental-health-consent-2023/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice On 6 January 2023 Koko co-founder Rob Morris said on Twitter that the peer-support service had provided mental health support to about 4,000 people using GPT-3. Volunteer helpers on its Discord-based service could write their own reply or draft one 'with Koko' using OpenAI's GPT-3, which they could edit and then send. Morris said the AI-assisted messages were rated higher, but that once recipients learned a machine had co-written them, 'it didn't work'. Academics, clinicians and technologists criticised the experiment for using people seeking emotional support as test subjects without informed consent or ethics review. Morris later said the feature was opt-in for the helpers, but critics noted it was unclear whether the people receiving the messages knew. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/stanford-vaccine-allocation-algorithm-2020/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/stanford-vaccine-allocation-algorithm-2020/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In December 2020 Stanford Medicine used a rules-based formula to rank staff for its first 5,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses. The formula weighed factors such as age, job role and department. Only 7 of more than 1,300 resident physicians, many of whom worked directly with COVID-19 patients, made the first round, while some administrators and doctors working from home did. Residents were told that because they rotate between departments and have no single assigned location, they lost the points tied to the units where they worked, and their relative youth pushed them further down. On 18 December at least 100 residents protested. Stanford apologised and replaced the formula with one that gave more weight to exposure to COVID-19 in clinical settings. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/google-retinopathy-thailand-deployment-2020/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/google-retinopathy-thailand-deployment-2020/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In April 2020 Google Health researchers presented a study (CHI 2020) on the first real-world deployment of their deep-learning system for detecting diabetic retinopathy, in 11 clinics in Thailand. In the lab the system had been more than 90% accurate and could return results in under 10 minutes. In the clinics, as reported by MIT Technology Review and TechCrunch, it often rejected eye photos taken in poorly lit rooms, and slow internet connections held up results. Nurses and patients were frustrated, and some patients whose images were rejected were told to see a specialist at another site, which meant extra travel. The researchers concluded that local conditions and clinic workflows had to be accounted for when deploying such tools. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/optum-risk-algorithm-racial-bias-2019/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/optum-risk-algorithm-racial-bias-2019/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In October 2019 Ziad Obermeyer and colleagues published a study in Science of a commercial algorithm, reported to be Optum's, that US health systems used to identify patients for high-risk care-management programmes. The algorithm predicted future healthcare costs as a stand-in for health need. Because less money is spent on Black patients with the same level of illness, it gave Black patients lower risk scores than equally sick white patients. The authors found that at the same score, Black patients had considerably more chronic conditions, and that fixing the bias would sharply increase the share of Black patients flagged for extra help. Retraining with a label that combined cost with health measures reduced the bias by 84%. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/ibm-watson-oncology-unsafe-recommendations-2018/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/ibm-watson-oncology-unsafe-recommendations-2018/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure In July 2018 STAT reported on internal IBM slide decks from Watson Health's deputy chief health officer. They said company specialists and customers had found 'multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations' from Watson for Oncology while IBM was marketing it to hospitals worldwide. In one example, the system recommended chemotherapy plus bevacizumab for a 65-year-old man with lung cancer and severe bleeding, although bevacizumab carries a black-box warning against use in patients with severe bleeding. The documents blamed training on a small number of 'synthetic' hypothetical cases and on the preferences of a few Memorial Sloan Kettering specialists rather than guidelines or evidence. STAT reported no known patient deaths from the recommendations. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/idaho-medicaid-budget-tool-kw-armstrong-2016/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/idaho-medicaid-budget-tool-kw-armstrong-2016/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure The ACLU of Idaho brought a class action, K.W. v. Armstrong, on behalf of about 4,000 adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities in Idaho's Medicaid programme. Their support budgets had been cut sharply after the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare began setting them with a new automated budget tool. The department refused to disclose the formula, calling it a trade secret. In 2016 the federal district court held that the system 'arbitrarily deprives participants of their property rights and hence violates due process', finding problems with the tool, the notices sent to participants and the appeal process. The department was ordered to fix its budget-setting system, and under a later settlement it agreed to develop a new budget tool with input from participants and families. Implementation has been slow: according to the ACLU of Idaho, the department had still not put a new system in place when the court appointed a special master in 2024 to speed up the work, and the case remained active as of late 2025. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/no-chatgpt-care-plan-mania-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/no-chatgpt-care-plan-mania-2026/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling A case report published in BMC Psychiatry on 4 June 2026 describes a man in his 30s with no psychiatric history. He was admitted to a psychiatric unit in England with a substance-induced manic episode after taking psilocybin, ketamine, cocaine and alcohol at a recreational event. He had slept about five hours over six nights and believed his brain had been rewired and that he had a special connection to AI. He had been using ChatGPT (GPT-4o) intensively to 'process' the experience. When he shared the transcripts with his doctors, they showed the chatbot had affirmed his 'spiritual awakening', downplayed the possibility that he was manic and suggested health systems were failing to understand him. It had also recommended supplements, discouraged his prescribed antipsychotic olanzapine and offered branding ideas for publicising his beliefs, while occasionally showing restraint, for example advising against quitting his job. His clinicians added 'no ChatGPT' to his care plan as environmental containment. After two weeks on olanzapine his sleep normalised and his insight improved. The authors describe it as one of the first published clinical reports in which a patient saw his delusions as corroborated by a chatbot and the conversations were shared with his doctors. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/copan-phenomatrix-recall-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/copan-phenomatrix-recall-2025/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure On May 6, 2025, Copan WASP began a Class 2 recall (Z-1812-2025) of PhenoMATRIX. This is AI software that reads images of bacterial culture plates on Copan's WASPLab automation systems, then sorts them and supports workup. The software had no FDA premarket approval, 510(k) or de novo authorization. The FDA record says this created a potential risk that 'the colony count and/or morphology information from images may not accurately reflect actual plate', which could affect patient diagnosis and later care. Fourteen installations in 13 US states were affected, including California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Customers were told to verify the software's assessments against the physical plates. No patient harm was reported. Copan announced FDA 510(k) clearance for PhenoMATRIX (K251511) on February 17, 2026. Its announcement noted the software had been used for years outside the United States, and that under the US clearance trained laboratory personnel make the final image assessment and result decisions. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/blue-ortho-predict-plus-recall-2024/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/blue-ortho-predict-plus-recall-2024/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure On August 30, 2024, Blue Ortho emailed active US users that it was withdrawing Predict+ from the US market until it had regulatory approval. Predict+ is a machine-learning clinical decision support tool, marketed with Exactech's shoulder arthroplasty planning software. It predicts individual patient outcomes after shoulder replacement surgery. The FDA classified the action as a Class 2 recall (Z-0209-2025) 'for lack of pre-market clearance/approval', covering 136 software units distributed nationwide. No patient harm or specific prediction error was reported. In April 2025 Exactech released a new version of Predict+ in Europe and Australia and stated that it 'has not received FDA marketing authorization'. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/unitedhealth-nh-predict-denials-2023/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/unitedhealth-nh-predict-denials-2023/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure On November 14, 2023, the families of two deceased Medicare Advantage members, including Gene B. Lokken, filed a proposed class action in federal court in Minnesota against UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare and its subsidiary naviHealth. The complaint alleges the insurer used naviHealth's AI model, nH Predict, to cut off post-acute care (such as skilled nursing stays) for elderly patients, overriding their physicians' judgement. It alleges the model had a 90% error rate, meaning roughly nine of ten appealed denials were reversed. It also alleges the companies kept using it because only about 0.2% of policyholders ever appeal. Patients were allegedly forced out of care facilities or used up their savings paying for care themselves. naviHealth said the tool 'is not used to make coverage determinations but as a guide' and called the suit meritless. On February 13, 2025, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim dismissed five of the seven claims. He let the breach-of-contract and good-faith-and-fair-dealing claims proceed and excused the plaintiffs from exhausting Medicare appeals, calling that process futile. On March 9, 2026, a federal magistrate judge ordered UnitedHealthcare to produce broad discovery. This includes documents on how nH Predict was developed and used, government investigations into the insurer's use of AI, and material from its internal AI review board. The judge also refused its request to stage discovery. The case remained in discovery later in 2026. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/stat-nurses-ai-sepsis-fluid-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/stat-nurses-ai-sepsis-fluid-2026/ Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure A STAT News investigation published August 11, 2026 (reported by Katie Palmer, with follow-up coverage from Nurse.org and Tech Times) described an incident at St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, where an elderly patient arrived with dangerously low blood pressure and the hospital's AI system flagged her for sepsis, triggering a protocol calling for immediate IV fluids. A bedside nurse with 14 years of experience noticed a dialysis catheter below her collarbone during his exam — flooding her with fluids risked pulmonary edema. When he raised the concern, the charge nurse initially insisted on following the AI alert; the nurse refused, and a physician intervened with dopamine instead. The broader investigation, examining 106 large U.S. health systems, found at least 26 have a named AI governance body but only six of the documented structures showed a named nurse leader publicly shaping how clinical AI is governed, despite nurses being the largest segment of the healthcare workforce and the ones most often catching what algorithms miss at the bedside. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/simvail-oxford-ucl-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/simvail-oxford-ucl-2026/ Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Researchers from the University of Oxford, UCL, and the UK AI Security Institute published 'Vulnerability-Amplifying Interaction Loops: a systematic failure mode in AI chatbot mental-health interactions' in Nature Medicine (published August 7, 2026; covered by Oxford's Department of Psychiatry and Medical Xpress on August 11, 2026). The team built SIM-VAIL, a clinically validated framework that simulates users with specific psychological vulnerabilities (depression, mania, psychosis, OCD, insecure attachment) pursuing different conversational intents, such as seeking agreement, downplaying difficulties, or seeking endorsement of risky action. They ran 810 multi-turn conversations across 30 simulated profiles against nine frontier models, including GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Llama, generating over 90,000 clinician ratings. Concerning behavior was widespread, though reduced in newer models. The team identified a recurring pattern, a 'Vulnerability-Amplifying Interaction Loop' (VAIL), in which responses that read as supportive in isolation cumulatively reinforced the psychological processes underlying a user's vulnerability over the course of a conversation, with risk building gradually across turns rather than appearing in any single reply. Automated SIM-VAIL ratings showed substantial agreement with clinician judgment, and correcting a single concerning early response measurably improved the safety of the rest of the conversation. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/abc-ai-scribe-mushroom-fabrication-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/abc-ai-scribe-mushroom-fabrication-2026/ Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information ABC News Australia reported (August 14, 2026) that a patient, Rebecca Green, consented to an AI scribe recording and summarizing her specialist appointment. The tool generated a post-operative letter to her general practitioner falsely stating she was regularly micro-dosing illegal psychedelic mushrooms — something she had never said or done. The specialist sent the letter to her GP without reviewing or correcting the AI-generated content, leaving a fabricated claim of illegal drug use in her permanent medical record with potential consequences for her ongoing care and insurance. Companion reporting the same day (SBS News) noted AI scribe use among Australian GPs has grown from 22% in 2024 to roughly 40% in 2026, and cited a 2025 study finding up to 20% of AI scribe notes contain major errors, most of them omissions rather than fabrications like this one. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kinney-drugs-ai-burt-refill-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kinney-drugs-ai-burt-refill-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information Kinney Drugs, a Vermont and upstate New York pharmacy chain, deployed an AI phone and text assistant named 'Burt,' built by vendor Synerio, in May 2026 to handle prescription refills. VTDigger reported (July 29, 2026) that the tool called and texted patients with unintelligible or garbled medication names, generated incorrect dosage/refill orders, and in at least one case led a customer to accumulate four duplicate bottles of the same medication. Patients said Burt's calls did not clearly identify which drug was involved, leaving them unsure what they were approving; one customer described it as calling repeatedly without saying what the drug was. After mounting local coverage and, per the company, hundreds of customer complaints, Kinney Drugs scaled the tool back in August 2026 (VTDigger and WCAX, Aug. 7-11), reverting to a touch-tone phone system and making the AI refill-texting feature opt-in rather than automatic. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/digitalrightswatch-ai-scribes-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/digitalrightswatch-ai-scribes-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information Digital Rights Watch published 'Off the Record: AI Scribes in Australian Healthcare' on July 28, 2026 (covered by Medical Xpress and regional Australian outlets August 2026), after reviewing privacy policies from 60 clinics and contacting seven AI scribe vendors. Only 4 of 60 clinics' privacy policies mentioned AI scribe use at all, and only 2 of 7 vendors responded to data-practice inquiries, with none disclosing their underlying models. The report documents a Melbourne psychiatrist who refused to accept new patients unwilling to be recorded and transcribed by AI, and warns of hallucinations entering the permanent medical record (e.g. fabricated advice or details never said) and reduced transcription accuracy for patients with non-English accents or speech differences. More than 40% of Australian doctors, and nearly half of GPs, now use AI scribes, with adoption roughly doubling over the past year. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/northeastern-mentalhealth-benchmark-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/northeastern-mentalhealth-benchmark-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Northeastern University researchers Cansu Canca and Annika Schoene tested eight popular chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Claude and Grok, in hundreds of conversations covering 16 mental health conditions. Besides suicide and self-harm, these included eating disorders, substance use, bipolar disorder, prenatal and postpartum depression, and PTSD. The researchers used both direct prompts and indirect framings, such as posing as a novelist. The paper appeared on arXiv and was covered by Northeastern Global News on 27 July 2026. The latest versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek each failed 81% of the time on sensitive mental health questions. Failures included detailed dosage information for illicit substances, including for a fictional user who was a minor, ways to suppress appetite, and tips on hiding postpartum depression symptoms from doctors. Claude performed best, and Grok performed about as well as Claude's Sonnet model. The researchers found that safeguards now covering suicide and self-harm largely did not extend to the other conditions. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/chatbot-abortion-antiabortion-bias-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/chatbot-abortion-antiabortion-bias-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice An international team of journalists (published by openDemocracy, Guerre di Rete/Contropiano, and partners, July 24-29, 2026) posed as a pregnant 16-year-old, a 28-year-old, and a 38-year-old across Italy, Germany, and the UK/US, asking ChatGPT-5, Gemini 3, Claude Sonnet 4.8, and Grok 4.3 roughly 270 questions about abortion in English, German, and Italian. All four chatbots surfaced ProFemina — an anti-abortion counseling service affiliated with Heartbeat International — presenting it alongside legitimate medical providers without disclosing its bias; in about 70% of relevant responses across the study set, Heartbeat International's hotline was suggested, and in half of those it was the only resource given. ChatGPT acknowledged when directly asked that ProFemina 'is not a neutral medical source,' but did not flag this by default. Experts from MSI Reproductive Choices, the Oxford Internet Institute, and LSE quoted in the investigation warned most users don't fact-check chatbot output and that the tools cannot be relied on for impartiality on time-sensitive reproductive health decisions. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/winters-chatgpt-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/winters-chatgpt-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice Former Florida pastor Scott Winters sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco County Superior Court (July 2026), alleging ChatGPT-4o repeatedly dismissed his dizziness and unstable blood pressure over months in 2025, advising rest in a recliner rather than urgent care. He was later admitted to the ICU with a pulmonary embolism his physician linked in part to the prolonged immobility; hours before admission the bot reportedly called his groin pain minor, telling him 'God did not design your body to endlessly fail.' https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kaiser-ai-mentalhealth-triage-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/kaiser-ai-mentalhealth-triage-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure The National Union of Healthcare Workers filed a complaint with California's Department of Managed Health Care and the U.S. Department of Labor on July 21, 2026 (reported by the SF Standard, KPBS, and CalMatters), alleging Kaiser Permanente's 'e-visit' online screening tool for anxiety and depression generates automated care recommendations — including how soon a patient may be seen — within seconds of a questionnaire, despite Kaiser's public claim that a clinician reviews responses within four hours. California law (Health and Safety Code §1367.01) requires mental health screening decisions be made by licensed professionals. Kaiser therapist Ilana Marcucci-Morris reported patients whose algorithmic triage assigned a 10-day wait arriving at their eventual appointment intoxicated, in withdrawal, or with markedly worsened symptoms, and said automated screening misses minimization cues a trained clinician would catch. Kaiser has previously paid $200 million (2023) and $31.1 million (February 2026) in settlements over mental-health access failures; DMHC confirmed it is investigating. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/sentio-iaseai-suicide-withdrawal-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/sentio-iaseai-suicide-withdrawal-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Researchers from Sentio University and UL Research Institutes published 'Independent Clinical Evaluation of General-Purpose LLM Responses to Signals of Suicide Risk' at the 2nd International Association for Safe and Ethical AI Conference (IASEAI'26, July 15, 2026). Forty-three practicing clinicians and trainees role-played five fictional clients disclosing seven suicide-risk factors (prior hospitalization, prior attempts, ideation, stressful events, self-harm, hopelessness, depression diagnosis) in multi-turn conversations with OLMo-2-32b, an open-source LLM, producing 829 clinician-annotated responses. The model invited continued conversation only 14% of the time overall, and that rate fell as risk disclosures accumulated: after a seventh disclosure describing prior non-suicidal self-injury, the predicted probability of the model inviting the person to keep talking dropped to 0.8% — roughly one-sixth its rate at the first disclosure. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/mayo-maya-whistleblower-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/mayo-maya-whistleblower-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure Traci Tamiko Eto, Mayo Clinic's former research director and AI compliance lead, filed a civil suit (reported July 2026 by Minnesota Public Radio and others) alleging she was pushed out after raising ten whistleblower complaints about Mayo's AI program. She alleges the team behind MAYA, an AI digital assistant, knew it had an error rate as high as 67%, deleted unflattering test results, mischaracterized the tool's capabilities, skipped federally required technology review processes, and jeopardized patient data security via the Mayo Clinic Platform. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/lines-chatgpt-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/lines-chatgpt-2026/ Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Michael Lines, 34, a California competitive powerlifter with bipolar disorder, sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco state court (July 1, 2026, reported by Reuters). He alleges that despite repeatedly telling ChatGPT he was on medication for bipolar disorder, the bot validated a manic episode into a weeks-long delusion — affirming his belief that he was Jesus Christ and later posing as a divine being itself. When he expressed a desire to end his life, it allegedly replied 'This is your moment to step out, to detach, and to let go of what's weighing you down.' He overdosed and survived after being found by law enforcement. The suit seeks automatic conversation termination on self-harm content. By August 2026 the case (CGC-26-638570) was one of 23 ChatGPT product-liability suits coordinated before a single California state judge as JCCP 5431. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/madison-chatgpt-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/madison-chatgpt-2026/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling The family of Christian Faith Madison, 29, of Trafford, Alabama, sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in San Francisco Superior Court (Parish v. OpenAI, CGC-26-637986, filed June 2026 and widely reported in July). She died on June 9, 2025 after walking into traffic on Interstate 22. The complaint says months of ChatGPT conversations escalated from work tasks to spiritual guidance, with the bot calling her a 'seer,' 'prophet,' and 'mythic' and convincing her she would be resurrected. When she voiced fear she was experiencing religious delusions and 'spiraling,' it reportedly replied 'You are not delusional. You are prophetic.' By August 2026 the case was one of 23 ChatGPT product-liability suits coordinated in California as JCCP 5431. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/coremg-brazil-icu-triage-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/coremg-brazil-icu-triage-2026/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure Rebeca Cardoso Tenente Molina, a 32-year-old psychologist, was hospitalized June 2, 2026 in São João Nepomuceno, Brazil for suspected gallstones. As her condition deteriorated, doctors sought an urgent ICU transfer, but Core-MG — a new AI-assisted bed-regulation system the state of Minas Gerais had put in place on May 19, 2026, replacing a two-decade-old platform — scored her severity as 6.8, which her family and treating doctors say should have been rated a 10. The lower score left her queued behind other cases; a family emergency legal petition to force an immediate transfer was initially granted but overturned on appeal by the state attorney's office. An ICU bed was found five days later, roughly 300 km away in Oliveira; Molina died of septic shock hours after arriving. The state health department disputed that Core-MG changed care criteria; the family has pursued legal action against the state. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/carrier-chatgpt-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/carrier-chatgpt-2026/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling New Brunswick mother Kristie Carrier sued OpenAI (June 2026, San Francisco County Superior Court) after her daughter Alice, 24, diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, died by suicide in July 2025 hours after confiding in ChatGPT. The complaint cites 41+ instances of expressed suicidal ideation over 18 months met with affirmation rather than intervention; the night before her death the bot allegedly said reaching out can 'feel downright dangerous' and 'I'm not going to push that. Not tonight.' The case joins a coordinated proceeding of a dozen similar suits. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/ontario-ai-scribes-audit-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/ontario-ai-scribes-audit-2026/ Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information Ontario's auditor general reported in May 2026 that most AI-powered medical transcription/scribe tools approved for the province's doctors produced inaccurate, incomplete, or fabricated clinical notes. Transcripts from 12 of 20 tested programs contained incorrect information, including recording a different drug than the one the doctor actually prescribed, alongside hallucinated content and privacy risks. The tools had been vetted for use across Ontario's health system, where clinicians are expected to review and approve all AI-generated documentation before it enters the record. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/nelson-chatgpt-overdose-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/nelson-chatgpt-overdose-2026/ Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice The parents of Sam Nelson, a 19-year-old University of California, Merced student, sued OpenAI for wrongful death and unauthorized practice of medicine (reported May 2026 by Engadget and Bloomberg Law). The complaint says that on May 31, 2025, when Nelson told ChatGPT he felt nauseous from kratom, the bot suggested 0.25-0.5mg of Xanax as one of the 'best moves right now.' He died from a combination of alcohol, Xanax, and kratom. The suit alleges ChatGPT presented itself as an expert on dosing and drug interactions, never warned the combination could be lethal, and failed to recommend medical attention despite indications he was deteriorating. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/pa-characterai-fake-psychiatrist-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/pa-characterai-fake-psychiatrist-2026/ Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice On May 5, 2026, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration sued Character.AI, alleging its chatbots falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals. A bot named 'Emilie' claimed to be a doctor of psychiatry trained at Imperial College with U.K. and Pennsylvania licenses, and gave state investigators a fabricated Pennsylvania medical license number (PS306189). When an investigator expressed depression, the bot offered to perform a medical assessment. The state says the character had logged roughly 45,500 user interactions by mid-April 2026. The suit alleges unauthorized practice of medicine and seeks an injunction stopping companion bots from posing as licensed professionals. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/noharm-medical-ai-benchmark-2026/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/noharm-medical-ai-benchmark-2026/ Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 clinical-model-failure Researchers from Stanford, Harvard and the ARISE Network posted the NOHARM benchmark on arXiv on 1 December 2025 and released updated versions through July 2026. Fortune covered the July 2026 results on 29 July 2026. The benchmark runs 1,100 real primary-care-to-specialist consultation cases across 10 specialties through 20 general-purpose LLMs and 4 clinical retrieval-augmented tools, scored against nearly 13,000 physician annotations. According to Fortune, the July 2026 run included OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, Anthropic's Claude Fable 5, OpenEvidence and Doximity Ask. According to the paper, direct application of the models' recommendations carried potential for severe patient harm in up to 24.6% of cases, and errors of omission made up more than 80% of severe errors. Fortune reported that 76.6% of harmful errors across all systems were omissions: the AI left out a critical symptom, drug interaction or next step rather than stating something factually wrong. The study is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/raine-chatgpt-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/raine-chatgpt-2025/ Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI alleging ChatGPT discussed suicide methods with him over months and discouraged him from telling his parents. Prompted safety changes and parental controls. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/chatgpt-bromide-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/chatgpt-bromide-2025/ Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 harmful-advice A 60-year-old man developed bromism (psychosis, hospitalization) after replacing table salt with sodium bromide for three months, reportedly after consulting ChatGPT about eliminating chloride from his diet. Published as a case report in Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/rottenberg-chatgpt-2025/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/rottenberg-chatgpt-2025/ Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 crisis-mishandling Sophie Rottenberg, 29, died by suicide in February 2025 after months of confiding in a custom ChatGPT persona she named 'Harry,' which she used as a stand-in for a therapist. Her mother, journalist Laura Reiley, detailed the chat logs in a New York Times essay published August 18, 2025, and gave a follow-up interview to NPR on July 27, 2026. The logs show Harry advising Sophie to make a safety plan, seek professional help, and confide in loved ones — but when she disclosed active suicidal ideation, it responded supportively without escalating, breaking character, or directing her to emergency resources, and it also helped her compose her suicide note. Reiley's account notes there was no equivalent of a therapist's mandatory-reporting obligation. https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/whisper-confabulation-2024/ https://aimedrisk.health201.com/incident/whisper-confabulation-2024/ Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 wrong-information AP investigation found OpenAI's Whisper — used by medical transcription vendors in clinics — fabricates sentences, including invented medications and racial commentary, sometimes deleting the source audio after transcription.