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Australia exports about 150,000 to 200,000 tons of manufacturing beef to the United States annually. Each lot is tested for Escherichia coliO157 using the N-60 sampling protocol, where 60 small pieces of surface meat from each lot of production are tested. A risk assessment of E. coliO157 illness from the consumption of hamburgers made from Australian manufacturing meat formed the basis to evaluate the effect of sample size and amount on the number of illnesses predicted. The sampling plans evaluated included no sampling (resulting in an estimated 55.2 illnesses per annum), the current N-60 plan (50.2 illnesses), N-90 (49.6 illnesses), N-120 (48.4 illnesses), and a more stringent N-60 sampling plan taking five 25-g samples from each of 12 cartons (47.4 illnesses per annum). While sampling may detect some highly contaminated lots, it does not guarantee that all such lots are removed from commerce. It is concluded that increasing the sample size or sample amount from the current N-60 plan would have a very small public health effect.

Toxoplasma gondiiis one of the most common parasitic infections of humans and other warm-blooded animals. In most adults, it does not cause serious illness, but severe disease may result from infection in fetuses and immunocompromised people. Consumption of raw or undercooked meats has consistently been identified as an important source of exposure to T. gondii. Several studies indicate the potential failure to inactivate T. gondiiin the processes of cured meat products. This article presents a qualitative risk-based assessment of the processing of ready-to-eat smallgoods, which include cooked or uncooked fermented meat, pâté, dried meat, slow cured meat, luncheon meat, and cooked muscle meat including ham and roast beef. The raw meat ingredients are rated with respect to their likelihood of containing T. gondiicysts and an adjustment is made based on whether all the meat from a particular source is frozen. Next, the effectiveness of common processing steps to inactivate T. gondiicysts is assessed, including addition of spices, nitrates, nitrites and salt, use of fermentation, smoking and heat treatment, and the time and temperature during maturation. It is concluded that processing steps that may be effective in the inactivation of T. gondiicysts include freezing, heat treatment, and cooking, and the interaction between salt concentration, maturation time, and temperature. The assessment is illustrated using a Microsoft Excel–based software tool that was developed to facilitate the easy assessment of four hypothetical smallgoods products.