Part 35 (1/2)
”Prajuk, okay. It's me.” Shane started. ”My friend Doctor Chin is here. We're about to . . . can you please talk to him?”
He handed the phone to Wenceslas. While he took the call, Shane considered the lab, the lawyers, the hospital, the FDA, Helixia. The forces at play here were too large to fight.
Thirty minutes later, Wenceslas walked inside and sat down beside him.
”So?” Shane asked him pleadingly.
”So, I told Doctor Acharn that I would read the research on the Airifan trials. That's the most that I can do, Shane. He's going to send me everything he has on this protein and what you did with your mouse. I was going to ask you to give the vials to me, but he feels they need to be temperature stable right now.” His eyes found Shane's, and in them Shane could read different decisions being played out. ”Promise you'll wait until I go over this stuff. Promise me, Shane.”
”I promise.”
Janelle took Shane's gla.s.s, swirled the wine roughly and drank.
”What do you think about this?” Wenceslas asked her.
”I think it needs FDA approval.”
To Shane's surprise, Wenceslas c.o.c.ked his head. ”Why?”
She narrowed her eyes, confused.
”Unapproved medicines are given to children all the time.”
”No, they're not.”
”I'm sure you know a few. Bear bile. Monkey claw?” He gave Janelle a knowing glance. ”Chinatown doctors prescribe this stuff every day.”
”That's different. Those have been proven over centuries.”
”I saw echinacea in your kitchen. Echinacea is unapproved by the FDA. More than a few physicians think it causes liver damage. But it's on the shelf at every drug store, and in infant drops, by the way.”
”Those are herbs. They're natural.”
”Our drug,” Shane informed them enthusiastically, ”is natural.”
”Natural herbs are as powerful as pharmaceuticals,” Wenceslas added. ”Anyway, it's not FDA approval I'm concerned with. There are thousands of drugs just like Shane's that are available without FDA approval.”
”Where do you buy them, back alleys?” Janelle asked.
”Walgreens.”
She stared at Wenceslas in disbelief. ”They sell unapproved drugs at major pharmacies?”
”Every day.”
”Where's the FDA in this?”
”Look, unapproved drugs are like illegal aliens. Does the government know about them? Sure. But there's way too many to stop them all. Some of them work well. And some approved drugs are killers. That's what I'm concerned about here. Knowing this will be safe. Safe and approved are two entirely different things.”
”Read the Airifan research,” Shane begged him.
Wenceslas stood. ”You guys have been through a lot. Please rest. I'll go over everything Doctor Acharn shares with me. I'm so sorry about your brother.”
Janelle walked with him out to his car. Outside it was dark, and frigid. She couldn't help but imagine Lily and Caleb running in weather like this.
”How is he doing?” Wenceslas asked her.
”Not good.”
”Yeah, he doesn't look good.”
”He spent his life trying to get close to his brother, he would have done anything. This is so f.u.c.king rotten, Wen.”
”Don't let him give that baby this medicine.”
”Oh,” Janelle agreed, ”don't worry about that.”
Over the next day Shane seemed to withdraw completely. He even turned down an invitation from Prajuk for a Chinatown lunch. Janelle knew Shane was not used to depending on other people's permission to move forward. This had served him well in his youth; now it threatened to undo him.
He waited a week. On Friday, he called Wenceslas and attempted to communicate his agony.
”I'm at the point,” Shane informed him, ”where I'm going to give her the shot and let you call the cops.”
”Okay. I'll come by tomorrow morning. We'll talk then.”
Somehow he made it through the day. In the morning, Shane went downstairs, made coffee, and sat stubbornly by the front door. Around ten, when Janelle and June were taking the babies for a walk, Wenceslas knocked on the door. He wore stiff dark jeans and a blue sweater, and thicker eyegla.s.ses than was his wont.
”Come have a coffee,” Shane told him.
They sat at the small wooden kitchen table, among chewed- up sippy cups, a parenting magazine, and a set of enormous plastic teething keys, while Shane prepared a press.
”So, I've spoken with Doctor Acharn three times,” Wenceslas began. ”He said he asked you to lunch?”
Shane said nothing.
”I've read the Airifan trials. They ran them on asthmatic children as young as six months old. In twelve- to twenty-four-month olds, there was a one point three percent incidence of liver damage. I have to say those are much better odds than a one-year-old child with alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency has.”
Shane watched him blankly. ”So you're going to call DCFS? The police? Just wondering who I can expect at my door? Because I'm giving her this medicine. I listen to her breathing all day and all night. I know why Caleb was desperate.”
Wenceslas removed his gla.s.ses and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. ”I understand why you pursued this, Shane. I'm satisfied, with conditions.”
Shane sat forward. ”What conditions?”
”I need to be here when she gets it. I need to monitor Lily daily for a week. I'm not a pediatrician. Once we see if this is working, we'll need to find someone sympathetic.”
”Of course. Thank you, Wen.”
”I can be here the rest of today.”
”Today?”