Emerging microbiological food safety issues related to meat

Avian influenza viruses and antibiotic-resistant pathogens have become topics of current public health interest. This paper will focus on the significance of these pathogens to the meat industry as well as other emerging microbiological food safety topics likely to impact the meat industry. These include surveillance of foodborne pathogens, microbial source tracking, risk assessment, and human populations at increased risk of infection by foodborne microbes. These emerging issues will likely lead to even greater challenges to producing microbiologically safe meat products than the industry has ever experienced. However, accompanying such challenges will be innovative solutions that provide even greater public health protection to meat-containing foods.