Что значит petition в медицинском /научном контексте?

Now, will antibiotics affect the results of a PCR? Well, this is kind of interesting and somewhat controversial. In untreated patients - some people give, some PETITIONS give antibiotics first prior to the testing, presumably to release intracellular organisms, now this is a practice that's done by a lot of different people, and they swear by it, and that's fine, I trust them. However, it's not been validated, so if someone says, ‘Show me the study’, I can't do that.