Dr Jeannette Young’s worst nightmare may be coming true.

In the days leading up to the G20 summit in Brisbane, Dr. Young, Queensland’s medical officer of health, warned that foodborne illness was a much bigger threat than terrorism.

Today at least 15 police officers in Brisbane have come down with a suspected case of gastro on the eve of the G20 Leaders’ Summit.

“We are getting on top of that very quickly to prevent it from spreading,” Dr. Young told reporters.

“When you’ve got large groups of people, particularly living in hotels and going to similar restaurants, we just want to sort this out quickly.”

In 1984, the Pope visited the restored 350-year-old Jesuit mission of Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ontario (that’s in Canada). After departing,1,600 hungry Ontario Provincial Police officers who had worked the ropes gathered for a boxed lunch. Of those 500 officers who chose ones with roast beef sandwiches, 423 came down with salmonella.

Those officers have shown, over the years, that a touch of the flu — as foodborne illness is often mistakenly called– is more than a couple of days praying at the porcelain goddess of foodborne illness.

Some 5-10 per cent of those police officers have developed reactive arthritis that will plague them for life.