Why the Newly Proposed Sepsis Treatment Needs More Study

March 31, 2017

(NPR) – Dr. Paul Marik, a well-regarded intensive care physician at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., is the doctor with the extraordinary claim. As we reported last week, he says he has treated about 150 patients with sepsis and that only one died of that often fatal condition (though some died of other causes). The question is how to find out whether he is right — and, ideally, how to do that quickly. Marik’s treatment involves a mix of intravenous corticosteroids, vitamin C and vitamin B, along with careful management of fluids. And his experience, so far, falls far short of the “extraordinary evidence” that a claim like his requires.