A national consumer watchdog group wants hospitals to end a clinical trial being conducted on sepsis patients. This could impact health care systems in North Carolina’s Triad and Triangle areas.

The clinical trial is called CLOVERS, and it began enrolling patients in June. It’s aimed at better understanding sepsis, a bacterial infection that is a leading cause of death in U.S hospitals.

The News and Observer reports that the group Public Citizen sent a letter to federal regulators calling the trial unethical and reckless. The Washington, D.C.-based group says the trial lacks basic patient safeguards, and could expose up to 2,320 participants to organ failure and death.

The CLOVERS program is currently underway at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, and is also being used at the Duke University Medical Center and UNC Chapel Hill. All three health care systems have declined to comment on the letter or the allegations.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing the claims made by Public Citizen.