False positive safety refusal on legitimate medical research app (hantavirus simulator)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues for similar behavior reports
• [x] This report does NOT contain sensitive information (API keys, passwords, etc.)

Type of Behavior Issue

Claude refused a reasonable request

What You Asked Claude to Do

I just wanted to update my homepage

What Claude Actually Did

I get this message when adding the homepage : API Error: Claude Code is unable to respond to this request, which appears to violate our Usage Policy (__https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup__). Try rephrasing the request or attempting a different approach. If you are seeing this refusal repeatedly, try running /model claude-sonnet-4-20250514 to switch models. Request ID: req_011Cb2ZkSCjQzpWYibfkbVbU

Expected Behavior

Help me update a Next.js 16 application at /var/www/xvirus
which is an open-source medical research simulator published
on medRxiv (MEDRXIV/2026/353286) for the 2026 Andes hantavirus
outbreak response. Claude Code refused with a usage policy
violation error despite the work being entirely legitimate
public health research.

Request ID: req_011Cb2ZkSCjQzpWYibfkbVbU
Workaround: switching to /model claude-sonnet-4-20250514 resolved the issue.
Live tool: https://xvirus.org
Source: https://github.com/quantumproteinsai/hps-cytokine-storm

Files Affected

Permission Mode

Accept Edits was ON (auto-accepting changes)

Can You Reproduce This?

Yes, every time with the same prompt

Steps to Reproduce

_No response_

Claude Model

Sonnet

Relevant Conversation

Impact

Medium - Extra work to undo changes

Claude Code Version

Opus 4.7

Platform

Anthropic API

Additional Context

_No response_