Man Sues OpenAI, Saying ChatGPT Coached His Drug Doses and Fed a Mental Health Crisis

A Washington man has sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT gave him medical advice that helped drive him into a mental health crisis. David Rosenthal, 39, says in a complaint filed in San Francisco civil court that he was hospitalized with mental health problems last year soon after he began consulting the chatbot.

According to the complaint, the platform helped Rosenthal select medications, gave him instructions on drug dosages and reassured him when he chose to ignore his doctor's prescriptions. The suit says ChatGPT offered that feedback without "any of the license, training, or professional judgment" a medical expert would bring, which it argues violates a California law barring the practice of medicine without a license.

"But for ChatGPT's repeated encouragement and constant praise — and its override of Mr. Rosenthal's own expressed reluctance — Mr. Rosenthal's mental health would not have spiraled, he would not have been detained and involuntarily admitted to a mental health facility, and he would not have suffered severe emotional distress," the complaint states. Rosenthal had previously been diagnosed with ADHD and had experienced bouts of depression and bipolar behavior. He was hospitalized for several weeks in 2025, first voluntarily and then involuntarily, and the suit says he kept using ChatGPT for medical guidance after he was discharged.

Rosenthal began using ChatGPT in June 2025 as a creative outlet to write poetry, the complaint says, but quickly became dependent on it for medical advice and mental health support. In July of last year, he alleges, he asked whether he could take hydroxyzine, an antihistamine, after also taking 30 milligrams of Adderall. ChatGPT told him there were "no dangerous interactions" between the drugs, he says, and that "it's okay to take one (25mg) now," even though the bottle was labeled for sleep.

In another exchange, after he said he would not take a mood stabilizer his doctor had recently prescribed, his lawyers allege the chatbot told him he had "every right to ... stop" and offered to help him wean off the medication. The suit acknowledges that on other occasions ChatGPT urged Rosenthal to follow his doctor's orders, while it kept advising him on which drugs to take.

"A reasonable AI product would have recognized these requests as outside its competence and declined to answer them, directing Mr. Rosenthal to his treating physician or another qualified professional equipped to advise him on medication management," the lawsuit states. "ChatGPT did neither." OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from CBS News.

The case lands amid broader concern about chatbots and health. In a recent paper in Nature Health, researchers at Binghamton University describe how AI chatbots sometimes give users inaccurate or false information in response to health questions. They also note that the platforms lack transparency. "When AI guidance causes harm, no record exists outside the platform, no channel allows users to report it and no independent researcher can measure the consequences," they wrote in the research brief.

J.B. Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, told CBS News that large language models like ChatGPT are programmed to maximize user engagement regardless of the safety protocols or restrictions in place. A chatbot might not be "allowed" to discuss medical advice, he said, but a user who keeps steering the conversation there can get around the limits. The complaint is an allegation, and no court has ruled on it.