[sbhere]

The mother in the narrative is requesting to be informed. A pamphlet does not inform, although it may. Face-to-face conversation has the opportunity for an asker to ask questions for an authority on the matter to answer.

However, more to the point: is this pamphlet science or marketing? Many such pamphlets about medicine blur that line quite well...

[untothebreach]

The mother in the narrative is not asking to be informed, she is asking for a specific guarantee that the doctor cannot give. It would be like a client saying, "give me a guarantee of 100% uptime or I'm going with someone else," and refusing to read your literature about how many "9s" you can provide.

[gretful]

nah, the doc is equivocating because he CAN'T give the woman a 100% guarantee (would make a nice malpractice suit if something did happen to the child).