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>> Please, Barry, why don't you start by telling us a little bit of the background
and the scientific rationale behind vitamin C and sepsis?
>> Okay. That's important.
We have been studying vitamin C in my laboratory for about twelve years.
And before we ever took vitamin C into a clinical setting with human beings,
we had done a very significant amount of work in animal model of sepsis, okay.
And this was an animal model that we created in the mouse where feces were injected
into the animal's abdomen to create bacterial sepsis.
>> Mm.
>> All animals, after receiving feces-induced peritonitis, develop very significant sepsis
with multiple organ failure and with acute lung injury which is what we were planning to study.
>> So this is a [inaudible] model, right?
>> No. This was different.
And the way this model was produced we would go to the mouse cage.
We would get feces pellets.
We would put them in with sterile saline sonicate it up to a gemish, centrifuge that down
so that there was just a clear, brown fluid.
We would take the clear, brown fluid, put that in the refrigerator overnight.
The organisms that were in the feces would replicate, replicate, replicate.
Then we would pull that fluid out and just a tenth of an ml of that fluid would be injected
into the peritoneum of the experimental mouse.
>> And that was enough to give them horrendous sepsis and multiple organ failure?
>> Yes. All mice, unless they got treatment, would die within 36 hours.
>> Wow. Okay.
>> Okay. And we had done a significant amount of work at a molecular level
with vitamin C before we had turned to the mouse model.
>> Okay.
>> And I'll never forget this.
It was about twelve years ago.
We had two cages.
We had a cage of mice that just got the feces-induced peritonitis.
Then we had another cage of mice with feces-induced peritonitis but 40 minutes
after they got the feces we injected 200 micrograms per gram of body weight of the mouse
of vitamin C. Put the cages aside.
That was about 4:00 in the afternoon.
I always get to work around 5:45 or 6:00 in the morning.
And so the next morning I get to work and I'm rushing into the laboratory and there in front
of me was a cage full of dead mice and cage full of mice that were running around eating
and drinking, the mice who had received the vitamin C. And it was like electricity.
We knew that something had gone on with the mouse model
that interrupted the course of sepsis.
>> And so for, as a preview for tomorrow,
because my understanding is the results are still very much embargoed, the study is going
to be published somewhere I take it, probably somewhere big?
>> Yes. The study will be published tomorrow morning in JAMA.
>> Okay. So the study is going to be in JAMA.
And unfortunately we can't say anything about the results
yet because they're still under embargo.
So all I can do is plead to anybody who is watching, anybody who is listening,
please tune in to the large screen tomorrow where you'll be able to see,
where you'll be able to see Dr. Fowler present the results live.
All I'll ask is one final question.
>> You can ask as many questions as you want to.
>> Yes. Do you still give it?
>> Absolutely.
>> I'll end this, I'll end the statement there and I'll just [inaudible].
Thank you so much.
>> Yes.