EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Specialists in infectious diseases are raising concerns about the potential for drug-resistant bacteria to slip through Australia's borders. Currently there are no food standards covering superbugs in either domestic or imported foods and some experts are warning of dire consequences. This report from Jason Om; the producer, Candice Talberg.
JASOM OM, REPORTER: Superbugs are a doctor's worst nightmare. They're bacteria that refuse to die. But the more antibiotics are used, the stronger their resistance grows.
The problem is having a direct effect at Melbourne's Austin Hospital, where Professor Lindsay Grayson is seeing more cases of superbug infections.
LINDSAY GRAYSON, AUSTIN HOSPITAL: We have a number of very suspicious cases where patients, people who've never been out of Australia and the only way - yet they've come in with superbug infections. They haven't been taking antibiotics and yet they've got this superbug in their blood or in their urinary tract or whatever. And so it makes us worried that the only way they could have picked that up is through food.
JASOM OM: Resistant staph has long been a problem in hospitals, but doctors are now becoming concerned about infections from superbugs in food. Often it's Australian travellers who return home and have fallen victim. It's led infectious disease experts to believe that imported food could also pose a problem.
LINDSAY GRAYSON: The tsunami which is sort of on the horizon is this growing use of antibiotics in food production overseas, largely uncontrolled.
JASOM OM: Antibiotic use in food production and the resistance it creates is a global concern. America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says antibiotics use to promote growth in food-producing animals should be phased out.
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http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3905303.htmSo what protection did the cons put in these so called free trade deals ... have we got the right to stop food full of antibiotics or did Abbott sell the countries health out for a news headline.