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  • [♪♪]

  • -[Chef] Everything looks good.

  • -[David] We're in for a treat.

  • A taste test from an award-winning chef.

  • Robert, this looks so good.

  • Anything added to it? Or it's just--

  • This is as basic as it's gonna come.

  • Please dig in.

  • -[David] Okay, I'm gonna go for it.

  • On tonight's menu, shrimp.

  • No sauce, no strong spices.

  • Chef Robert Clark says his shrimp don't need anything.

  • They're different.

  • So, what's your secret?

  • How do you get shrimp to be so much better than I'm used to?

  • The secret of my success is basically sourcing quality.

  • The more you can maintain the integrity of the product,

  • the easier it is.

  • -[David] Chef Clark believes it's tough to buy quality shrimp

  • at the supermarket.

  • I have not eaten a farm tiger prawn imported into Canada

  • in probably 20 years.

  • They could be filled with pesticides,

  • antibiotics, insecticides.

  • They're grown in cesspools.

  • -[David] Cesspools filled with antibiotics?

  • [♪♪]

  • Time for a Marketplace test to find out what's really lurking

  • on our shrimp.

  • Fishmonger.

  • -[David] And here's what you might not know.

  • Unlike chicken and beef, in Canada antibiotic use is banned

  • on all shrimp.

  • This one is from India.

  • -[David] But most of our shrimp is imported largely from Asia.

  • So, I've got some from Vietnam, some from Thailand,

  • some from China.

  • -[David] So we buy 51 packages from Montreal,

  • Toronto, Saskatoon, and Calgary.

  • Let's get an organic one.

  • -[David] We even pick a few organic samples from Ecuador

  • and from Vietnam.

  • On one of the labels, "raised without the need

  • "for antibiotics."

  • "Uncooked pacific white shrimp, de-veined."

  • "From India, de-veined."

  • -[David] Then we pack them on ice...

  • And we are good to go.

  • -[David] ..and ship them off to a special lab

  • at the University of Saskatchewan.

  • [♪♪]

  • It's run by microbiologist Joseph Rubin.

  • He's testing to see if there are dangerous bacteria

  • on our shrimp.

  • Joe, hi.

  • What have you got here?

  • I have some of the results from your shrimp.

  • -[David] These are our shrimp here or, at least,

  • bits of them?

  • Yes, yes. The organisms we grew.

  • And what are you looking for?

  • What we're looking for are different types of antibiotic

  • resistant bacteria and different types of food-borne pathogens.

  • -[David] Pathogens like E. coli, salmonella,

  • staphylococcus aureus.

  • Potentially harmful bacteria that can adapt into superbugs

  • that many antibiotics cannot kill.

  • What's this one here?

  • -[Joseph] What you can see is we have these nice pink colonies.

  • Which is very characteristic of E. coli.

  • In addition to showing us that we have E. coli, also

  • contains antibiotics in it and so we think that based

  • on growth on this plate, we have an antibiotic

  • resistant bacteria.

  • -[David] First result and it's positive for E.coli

  • but Rubin still needs to run a DNA test overnight

  • to see if the bacteria is antibiotic resistant.

  • The possibility is a big concern.

  • He tells us about recent research from the UK.

  • They did a large study, and were projecting forward to 2050,

  • that the number of people who would be dying of resistant

  • organisms could potentially even surpass cancer.

  • -[David] They're already killing people.

  • The superbugs can travel from farm,

  • to store, to your kitchen.

  • -[Wendy] I don't know where my place is in this world anymore.

  • -[David] But especially in hospitals.

  • -[Wendy] That's my husband.

  • -[David] It looks like you had the camera ready

  • at the exact moment.

  • -[Wendy] His beautiful eyes.

  • -[David] Two years ago, Wendy Gould's husband George

  • was diagnosed with colon cancer.

  • -[David] Did you think he was going to live at that point?

  • If I had anything to do with it, yes.

  • -[David] You were going to try to keep him alive as

  • long as you could.

  • Everything in my power.

  • -[David] But Wendy ran into a problem that left her powerless.

  • George developed a serious infection.

  • They had him on antibiotics trying to kill this infection.

  • Yeah.

  • -[David] Why weren't they working?

  • Well, it would clear up, but it's still in there.

  • It didn't kill it, it cleared up the infection.

  • But the bug's still waiting.

  • -[David] What was the nature of this bug that meant the

  • antibiotics weren't working on it?

  • Well, it was a superbug.

  • [♪♪]

  • -[David] They found out in a letter from the hospital telling

  • them about a contaminated endoscope

  • that was used on George.

  • "We're writing to inform you that you are one of three

  • patients who have been identified as having been

  • infected with the bacterium that is called,

  • New Delhi Metalo Eso--" I don't know how to say that--

  • -[David] But the E.coli.

  • Yup, E.coli.

  • -[David] How does a New Delhi strain of a bug

  • end up inside George?

  • From the endoscope.

  • -[David] Doctors tried to kill that bug using

  • half a dozen different antibiotics,

  • some so powerful, Wendy says George was

  • violently hallucinating.

  • -[Wendy] This is July 28th, 2016 so it was about a week

  • after his surgery.

  • -[David] He was hospitalized 23 times in just over a year.

  • George became too weak to continue cancer treatment,

  • too sick from the bacteria to eat.

  • And there he is January, 2018.

  • And that was-- he passed away January 25th.

  • This is what the bug did to him.

  • Then everything fell apart.

  • -[David] Do you think he could've survived?

  • -[Wendy] Yeah.

  • Maybe he wouldn't have been here you know--

  • for years and years but it certainly would've been

  • longer than two years and he wouldn't

  • have had to suffer.

  • -[David] What is the thing that's important

  • for people to know?

  • You could have all the best doctors in the world taking

  • care of you with whatever it is is the matter with you but if

  • you get one of these infections, that's it.

  • [♪♪]

  • I'm terrified by this stuff.

  • Multi-drug resistance is probably the biggest threat

  • that we have to modern medicine in the 21st century.

  • -[David] Biochemist Gerry Wright is the director of McMaster

  • University's Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

  • So, this is your lab?

  • -[Gerry] This is where most of my students and staff work.

  • What we're trying to do is find new antibiotics and learn more

  • about antibiotic resistance.

  • Every time you have a knee replacement,

  • any kind of surgery, cancer chemotherapy,

  • you have anyone in your extended family that's had a premature

  • baby, they all rely on antibiotics because their

  • immune systems are weak.

  • -[David] And what happens if we can't use them,

  • if we've sort of run out of antibiotics because

  • everything's resistant?

  • All of what we consider to be modern medicine

  • becomes incredibly risky.

  • -[David] One contributor to the crisis,

  • overuse of the drugs in our food at home and abroad.

  • And when it comes to shrimp farmed overseas,

  • they are often crammed into disease-prone pools.

  • As a result, antibiotics are sometimes added

  • to keep the shrimp alive, contaminating our food.

  • Canada is passing laws that say no antibiotics in much of our

  • food, just banning it.

  • Doesn't that help?

  • Our supermarkets are full of food that come not just from

  • Canada but come from all around the world and the challenge that

  • we have to deal with now is that those countries don't have the

  • same regulations that we do.

  • -[David] That sounds a bit like a backdoor.

  • That's correct.

  • That's the challenge that we have.

  • -[David] That backdoor means that whatever Canada says about

  • banning antibiotics in shrimp, superbugs are

  • still getting into the country.

  • Once these organisms are here, once these genes are in Canada,

  • then there's no good way to keep them from spreading around.

  • So, what would be a really good idea is to prevent them

  • from getting in, in the first place.

  • -[David] Yeah.

  • -[David] Cross-country shrimp shopping spree.

  • [♪♪]

  • Our mission testing for superbugs on shrimp.

  • 51 packages, shipped to Joe Rubin's lab.

  • The first results show a troubling bacteria.

  • Now we want to know if it's also antibiotic resistant.

  • So, this is the final confirmation?

  • This is the final confirmation.

  • So, what we're going to see here is whether or not we've been

  • able to identify the actual resistance genes.

  • And here you can see...

  • there's our bands.

  • There's proof positive these are ESBL producing strains.

  • And what an ESBL is, is an enzyme the bacteria produce

  • that allows them to break down antibiotics.

  • -[David] The ESBL is almost like an antibiotic killer?

  • That's not a bad way of thinking about it, yeah.

  • It's a bacterial countermeasure.

  • -[David] Overall, Rubin finds 17 per cent,

  • nearly 2 out of every 10 packages of the shrimp we test

  • are contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  • Of those, most are resistant to more than one antibiotic.

  • And of them, 33 per cent test positive for ESBL,

  • the antibiotic killer.

  • ESBLs are really effective at degrading

  • penicillin-type drugs.

  • -[David] So what about the organic samples?

  • Turns out Rubin finds an ESBL superbug on

  • one of those brands, too.

  • We also had shrimp samples that had this label on them

  • "best aquaculture practices."

  • Did any of those turn up positive

  • for antibiotic resistance?

  • Yeah, so of the nine samples that we tested where we

  • identified resistant bacteria, six of those were from products

  • that had that indication of certification on them.

  • -[David] BAP says to be certified,

  • farmers should only use antibiotics minimally.

  • As a shopper, we asked Rubin what he thinks certified means.

  • A product that has maybe higher quality than other products.

  • Now, whether that's true or not and, and what the

  • particular certification is actually aiming to certify

  • is maybe an open-ended question.

  • -[Female Narrator] We are the one-stop shop

  • for aquaculture certification.

  • -[David] We share our findings with BAP.

  • They agree that antibiotic resistance is a worldwide

  • problem but emphasize their shrimp isn't "unsafe".

  • Still, their certification doesn't guarantee it wasn't

  • treated with antibiotics.

  • Many unanswered questions, including why one country has

  • more positives for resistant bacteria than any other.

  • Of the nine contaminated samples China accounts for two,

  • Vietnam and Thailand, one each,

  • and India, five.

  • Does it prompt questions for you that five of the nine

  • contaminated samples came from India?

  • Absolutely.

  • Yep, I would be really interested to know,

  • sort of, where there may have been breakdowns in the

  • production cycle that would have allowed

  • this contamination to occur.

  • -[David] Most shrimp in Canadian supermarkets come from India-

  • 15 million kilograms a year.

  • India also uses more antibiotics than any other country,

  • doubling their use in less than 20 years.

  • How did these bacteria that we found in the shrimp become

  • resistant to antibiotics?

  • There's always a low level of resistance but the kinds of

  • resistance that you-- that were detected,

  • is really connected in a very straight line towards--

  • with antibiotic use.

  • -[David] So, it's pretty clear to you that someone has used

  • antibiotics on these shrimp?

  • Or in the ponds at some point for other organisms,

  • or something, there's got to be a way

  • for those resistance genes to be there.

  • -[David] We can't say for sure the shrimp in our test

  • were farmed in antibiotic contaminated pools.

  • When we share the results with the companies, including

  • the organic brand, they tell us those superbugs may have

  • been picked up during processing,

  • shipping, or elsewhere in the environment.

  • -[David] How safe is your shrimp?

  • On your Marketplace.

  • Our tests have found antibiotic resistant

  • bacteria on supermarket shrimp.

  • Imported from around the world.

  • Pandora's box is open when it comes to resistance.

  • We can't scrub the planet of this problem.

  • -[David] Companies and certifiers say these superbugs

  • can be killed by cooking your shrimp thoroughly.

  • Easy, right?

  • We're putting that to the test.

  • [♪♪]

  • Researchers at the University of British Columbia coat shrimp

  • with an opaque gel and then invite home cook Charlotte Lee

  • to prepare a dish.

  • So, over here we have your shrimp for you,

  • all your ingredients.

  • -[David] She has no idea what she's getting into.

  • The gel will stick to everything she touches,

  • a way to illustrate how easily bacteria

  • on the shrimp could spread.

  • She is very careful in her preparation.

  • Constantly wiping her hands and her cooking area.

  • -[David] Hi Charlotte, I'm David.

  • Hi, David.

  • -[David] That was really quite something.

  • What is this?

  • -Thank you.

  • This is scrambled egg with shrimp, yeah.

  • I think the way to make it is to make the egg

  • really creamy and silky.

  • -[David] So, one of the things that we're doing

  • in our little experiment here that we didn't tell

  • you about before is that the raw shrimp is actually

  • coated in a luminescent gel.

  • -Okay.

  • -[David] We just want to see where it ended up.

  • We're going to turn all these lights off and give it a go.

  • Okay, yeah, you see there's some on the counter,

  • there's more on the counter.

  • Gel from the shrimp on the corn-starch box.

  • On the egg carton.

  • Even on the tap where Charlotte washed her hands.

  • And remember that handshake when I introduced myself?

  • Watching with us, food safety scientist Siyun Wang.

  • So, we've just done this experiment,

  • you've seen the results.

  • Does that surprise you at all?

  • Well it doesn't surprise me.

  • The lady who was doing the cooking,

  • she actually handled the things really well but as a result we

  • are still seeing the dye while in reality it could be harmful

  • bacteria being spread to the utensils,

  • to the other parts of the kitchen.

  • -[David] If this were bacteria, it could live on this surface

  • for months.

  • The thing is, they are capable of just staying there,

  • and once there are better conditions

  • they might be able to grow again.

  • So, this is pretty alarming.

  • -[David] It's a good reminder for us that even if we cook

  • meat, shrimp, really, really well, that there's still a way

  • for bad stuff on it to get into us.

  • We actually saw, for example, that dye ended up getting onto

  • the green onion.

  • So if the different ingredients are mixed up then there's

  • a chance that these harmful bacteria can still get to people

  • through other means.

  • -[David] Make a salad from that green onion and you're

  • potentially eating live antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  • And that can now sit in your gut building up resistance

  • for years to come.

  • So who's making sure that doesn't happen?

  • That our food is safe?

  • That's the job of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

  • But we tried for weeks to get an on-camera interview

  • with no luck.

  • So we're here in Quebec City to ask their Minister,

  • Ginette Petitpas Taylor, about why CFIA isn't testing

  • for antibiotic resistant bacteria on imported shrimp.

  • They're only testing for traces of antibiotic residue,

  • and that's supposedly going to prove whether antibiotics were

  • ever used on the shrimp.

  • If they find it, the CFIA can send the shipment back.

  • But that test provides no clues about what kinds of superbugs

  • are coming into the country.

  • Should the CFIA be doing the test we did,

  • testing for antibiotic resistant bacteria?

  • It's a gap. They need to close the gap.

  • We need to get on top of it.

  • The problem right now is other than your little study,

  • we don't know.

  • -[David] So we should be watching for it?

  • We should definitely be watching for this.

  • So we're going to try to ask the Minister of Health,

  • right here why no one seems to be watching.

  • I'm David with CBC Marketplace.

  • I'm trying to understand whether you, whether your government,

  • is concerned with antibiotic resistant bacteria showing

  • up on our shrimp.

  • Well, they absolutely need to be watching it on our shrimp

  • and I'm convinced the CFIA is doing the work that

  • is needed to be done in order to protect our food supply

  • here in Canada.

  • -[David] If they aren't doing it should they be doing it now?

  • This is absolutely an area that is a priority

  • for our government.

  • -[David] Is it your commitment to look in to the issue

  • of what is on our shrimp being imported into this country?

  • I am absolutely committed to make sure that I get in touch

  • with our CFIA officials to find out what exactly is being done

  • in this area and then from there making sure that we ensure that

  • Canada's food supply is safe for all Canadians.

  • We'll follow up with that, thanks very much.

  • Thank you so much.

  • [♪♪]

  • -[David] While we wait for our government to act,

  • others are already finding solutions.

  • So these are all the tanks.

  • This is the farm.

  • -[David] We're visiting a Canadian shrimp farm,

  • Berezan Shrimp in Langley, B.C.

  • -[David] It's huge.

  • There's a lot to take in.

  • -[David] Like if we look up here through all of this,

  • how many shrimp live here?

  • At peak there's going to be about 3-4 million shrimp

  • in this building.

  • 3-4 million shrimp in all these?

  • Yes.

  • -[David] And it's just an early start.

  • If things go well, they're hoping to boost production and

  • become a major supplier to the Canadian market.

  • You don't use antibiotics?

  • There's no antibiotic use in this farm.

  • Why is it that abroad we see antibiotic use en masse,

  • and you've got zip in this huge facility?

  • We're an indoor facility.

  • We control the engineered air, engineered water.

  • -[David] Keep the water clean, the shrimp stay healthy,

  • so there's no need for antibiotics.

  • We even checked, running our test on Berezan Shrimp.

  • No antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  • Overall, their approach seems to be working.

  • -[David] You want to go fishing?

  • Or, I guess, shrimping?

  • Shrimpin'.

  • -[David] Oh, yeah.

  • So how old are these?

  • These guys are batch 12, so they've been on the farm here

  • now for a couple of months.

  • -[David] With Chef Robert, we taste test that Canadian shrimp.

  • Delicious, though a bit pricey,

  • about 30 per cent more expensive.

  • But this top cook says cleanliness has a cost.

  • Food shouldn't be cheap.

  • Our priorities in North America, our priorities are wrong.

  • It's more important to us that we have the right car

  • than we feed the right food to our children.

  • That's where our society is.

  • -[David] Do you think our demand for food at the lowest

  • possible price has somehow caused us to live in the

  • world that we now live in?

  • Absolutely, you get what you pay for.

  • -[David] Do you eat shrimp?

  • Yes, I do.

  • I love shrimp.

  • -[David] And when you think about what we're finding

  • in imported shrimp, what does it cause you to do?

  • I'm very careful when I'm cooking shrimp for all the same

  • reasons I'm careful when I'm cooking chicken.

  • I just assume that there is going to be bacterial

  • contamination on it.

  • -[David] What you need to know.

  • Look for wild shrimp.

  • Always cook shrimp carefully and thoroughly.

  • Buy local shrimp whenever possible.

  • Buying organic is no guarantee the shrimp

  • are free of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

[♪♪]

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