One unfortunate result of being rich or "super-rich" is wanting to waste your money on things that are either novelties, at best, or downright dangerous, at worst. While many of the newer members made many Horizon Scientists roll their eyes, there was roughly one-third that were a bit more understandable, if still annoying to Horizon. As it turned out, many of them had tried alternative medicine for many different things, but 'maintaining youth' seemed to be high on that list. But the end result was that they had ended up severely injuring themselves in various ways using these alternative forms of treatment.
---
One woman, who had decided to become a bear Animalian, had one of the most understandable reasons for converting, and for choosing her species. Apparently she was suffering the consequences of several years of 'bee-sting acupuncture', and had suffered a severe allergic reaction to her latest 'treatment'.
"Somehow I'm not surprised at this." said one scientist, reviewing the case, "Those who undertake this therapy should be aware that the more that you are stung by bees, the more likely you are to suffer from a severe allergic reaction."
"So sort of like the opposite of building an immunity to allergies." said his co-worker.
"While her conversion is able to prevent her from being stung again," said the first, "We can't prevent her from joining the 'at-risk survivor Darwin Award club'."
---
Another had dropped off a mysterious spray at the front desk when she went to get her conversion done. Her conversion price dropped in half when the spray tested positive for arsenic. As it turned out, she had been frequenting an "alternative medicine health spa" (for lack of a better term) that had all kinds of quack cures seemingly inspired by 19th century medicine designed to slow/reverse signs of aging. Initial investigation if the spa showed all kinds of alternative medicine that were all nearly useless at best. While they couldn't shut it down quite yet, the medical authorities promised to get the spa shut down as thanks for drawing their attention to them.
---
A third was a bit of a head-scratcher. After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had made the "brilliant" decision to reject traditional treatment to, instead, cut out animal-based products and use herbal medicine. When it was clear that the cancer she had was in "remission", a startling diagnosis from her doctor made her reconsider her choices. One of the herbal "medicines" she had been taking was apricot kernel extract. She had either never heard that, or didn't care that, apricot kernels were a good source of cyanide until after a routine check-up discovered the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. While she did make her decision to be an herbivore Animalian, she was having some trouble deciding. Fortunately the database was available to help out.
---
All together, these cases seemed to prove the downsides of alternative medicine. While there were some holdouts in favor of it, there were those who were actively reconsidering it.