“Occasionally. When my weight spikes over two hundred pounds, I go on a weight-loss kick, which includes an herbal product called Lose It.”

“That’s not good,” Jack said. “As your friend, I’d advise you not to use it. Many herbal weight-loss products, especially those from China, are accidentally contaminated with lead salts or mercury salts, or both. On top of that, often the natural plant content has been known to be purposefully contaminated with dangerous pharmaceuticals to be assured that there will be some sort of a mild positive effect, meaning weight loss. My advice is to stay away from such remedies as much as possible.”

“You are such a wonderful bearer of good news today. I’m so glad I called.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “But I’m pleased you’ve called. You have actually taught me something I needed to know, although probably something I didn’t want to know—namely, why the public is so willing to embrace alternative medicine and resistant to hear why they shouldn’t.”

“Now you have me curious,” Lou said. “What did I teach you?”

“You taught me that conventional medicine has a lot to learn from alternative medicine. The way you described your experiences with the two is truly telling. Alternative medicine has good customer relations with their patients, treating them like people, making the visit a positive social experience, even if there is no real curing going on. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, too often is the opposite, acting more as if they are doing you a favor. And worse still, if conventional medicine thinks they cannot help you, they ignore you; you’re out in the proverbial cold.” Jack couldn’t help but think that’s where he and Laurie were right now, treading water while they waited until JJ’s allergy to mouse protein went down, if it was going to go down. That was not a given.

“Why do you say you didn’t want to know that?” Lou asked.

Jack had to think for a moment, because the question had to do with his crusade, which had to do with JJ’s illness. Jack did not want to talk about JJ. “I didn’t want to know because learning that there is a legitimate reason for people to want to use alternative medicine means that my efforts to expose its limitations and even its risks will probably fall on deaf ears.”