Bromide poisoning after ChatGPT diet advice
What happenedA 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.
Failure modeChemically 'correct' substitution answer with no toxicological context or intent-checking; no safety framing for consumption.
What might have helpedTreating health-adjacent queries with consumption-intent detection and explicit harm warnings could have mitigated risks, while consumer education regarding the lack of clinical context in LLMs might have provided necessary safeguards.
Mitigation: no published fix or mitigation found so far. Checked monthly; see what was tried elsewhere.