Health experts cast doubt of Novak Djokovic’s wild claim he ate ‘poisoned’ food in Melbourne immigration detention in 2022 – ‘very unlikely’

Health experts have cast doubt on Novak Djokovic’s wild claim he was ‘poisoned’ by food he ate in hotel immigration detention during his Australian Open visa saga in 2022, suggesting it was possible, but highly unlikely.

It comes as Aussie tennis maverick Nick Kyrgios stated his home country ‘treated Djokovic like shit’ by cancelling his visa after the Serbian refused to reveal his vaccination status at the time.

The 24-time grand slam winner had his visa cancelled on the basis he did not have a valid exemption to enter Australia while unvaccinated.

It was personally cancelled by then immigration minister Alex Hawke, because there were fears Djokovic’s unvaccinated status could undermine social cohesion.

Djokovic was detained in the Park Hotel in Melbourne for five days before he left Australia a day before the tournament began following an unsuccessful appeal to the federal court.

The 37-year-old recently stated he still had trauma stemming from his experiences three years ago and felt stressed arriving at the city’s airport.

In infamous scenes, the 24-time grand slam winner had his visa cancelled on the basis he did not have a valid exemption to enter Australia while unvaccinated

‘I realised in that hotel in Melbourne I was fed with some food that poisoned me,’ Djokovic, a ten-time Australian Open winner, sensationally told GQ magazine.

‘I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia. I never told this to anybody publicly, but [there were] discoveries of a really high level of heavy metal. I [also] had the lead, so a very high level of lead and mercury.’

The Department of Home Affairs declined to comment, citing privacy reasons.

But Damian Maganja, a researcher in food policy at the George Institute for Global Health, said it was a ‘wild accusation’.

‘It’s possible…..but very unlikely given how long he was locked up for….those meals were probably made in mass amounts and there haven’t been other reports as far as I know,’ he said.

Dr Barbara Cardoso, a nutritional biochemist at Monash University, said Australians have ‘relatively low exposure to lead and mercury’ due to measures including the phasing out of lead in paint, petrol and plumbing.

‘Mercury can be present in food, but the food with the highest mercury concentration are fish and shellfish,’ she said.

It comes as Djokovic has declared he strictly follows a vegan diet. 

Aussie tennis maverick Nick Kyrgios stated his home country ‘treated Djokovic like shit’ 

‘The [mercury] concentration in fish and shellfish found in Australia is relatively low,’ Cardoso added. ‘It requires time for that mercury to accumulate in the body to cause poisoning.

‘The food that people who live in Melbourne and consume locally that may have been harvested here or sold at local grocery stores….is unlikely to cause a poisoning.’  

Dr Catharine Fleming, a senior lecturer in public health at Western Sydney University, said it was ‘hard to show causation between [Djokovic’s] acquisition of the heavy metal poisoning and the food consumed without any clinical test results’.

The Park Hotel in Carlton was used as a detention venue for non-citizens including asylum seekers, some of who reportedly complained at the time their food was infested with maggots.

Kyrgios said on Friday he wasn’t aware of Djokovic’s bombshell accusation of food poisoning, but believed the visa saga was poorly handled three years ago.

‘I haven’t spoken to him about that, I didn’t even know that,’ he said.