Antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) in our hospitals claim over 7,000 Australian lives each year, with public health experts calling this one of the greatest health threats of our time.

A new report released by Friends of the Earth (FoE) reveals experts believe that widespread use of nano-silver could breed more superbugs, leading to more Australian deaths in hospitals.

“If we start using nano-silver quite broadly in the environment, then not only will we have bacteria that are resistant to nano-silver, then I would bet that they'll already be multi-drug [antibiotic] resistant as well."
Professor Hatch Stokes, ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney

Dozens of socks, shoes, sports clothing, toothbrushes, towels, fridges and more are now marketed as ‘anti-bacterial’ or ‘odour controlling’, using nanoparticles of silver to kill the bacteria that cause odour. These products are available in leading Australian retailers such as K-Mart, Rebel Sport, BigW, Retravision, Priceline, Best Buy and Kathmandu.

“It’s a market that created itself. In a sense, that they just use fear of bacteria as a marketing tool to introduce products that are unnecessary."
Professor John Turnidge, President of the Australian Society for Microbiology and Clinical Director of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, SA Pathology

Over 2 years ago, health experts joined FoE’s call to remove these dangerous and unnecessary nano-silver products from the market. Yet today there is still effectively no regulation of nano-silver in Australia: no safety testing & no labelling

Please join the call for urgent government action to get these products off the market by signing this petition

Sincerely,
Dr. Gregory Crocetti and Georgia Miller

For more information and to download a copy of the report, please visit:
http://nano.foe.org.au/nano-silver-products-breeding-superbugs-experts-warn