[Animal health, food quality and consumer protection as a unit--introduction to a topic]

As a consequence of widely spread latent infections, animal health and the necessary examination of livestock have become an indispensable level of quality assurance. While so far, legislation in epizootics did not provide for a control of latent infections with an inapparent clinical course, the EC Directive on Zoonoses which has come into force in 1993 requires such an approach for the first time. As a consequence of the further increase in the number of cases of acute gastroenteritis caused by bacteria of the genus Salmonella, veterinary medicine and agriculture have been compelled to join forces and institute control measures aimed at rendering stocks most of which are maintained under conditions of intensive keeping free from defined agents of zoonotic diseases. This approached requires four levels of action, i. e. a suitable diagnosis, a creation of healthy stocks, the use of suitable immunoprophylactic methods and a safeguarding of the hygienic status achieved. With the aid of methods of genetic engineering, several research groups try to create the necessary conditions for doing so. They take account of the established knowledge that the necessary consumer protection cannot be afforded any longer because the performance of ante-mortem and post-mortem examination of meat animals is a limited one, unless three limits of quality assurance are adopted, i. e. examination at the farm of origin, ante-mortem and post-mortem examination of meat animals and control of food establishments and foods.