It's considered extremely safe. The disinfectant used is either citric acid or ammonia (and the remaining ammonia residue is not enough to be harmful to humans). It does sound concerning, but it generally is not.
Safety of the disinfectant isn't the issue. It's the care of the food in the process. Ground beef processing needs to be handled with care to prevent it from being contaminated with feces to prevent Ecoli H157 outbreaks. I'd rather my food receive greater care in handling and preventing fecal contamination then just blanket disinfecting it.
I understand the concern wrt E. Coli (I assume you were referring to O157:H7 -- the number after the O refers to the antigen produced by the lipopolysaccharide layer, and H refers to the flaggelar antigen, so H157 is likely an error). Also, the USDA has categorized other E. Coli stains as adulterants: O26, O131, O145, O45, O111, O121.
Also, Salmonella has a tendency to grow in ground production areas and is a concern as well. The fact of the matter is, ammonia disinfection is a tool to combat these threats, and is useful even in instances where proper food handling practices are observed. After all, if ground beef is prepared correctly by the consumer (i.e. cooked to 160F, not cross-contaminated), then it's a moot point anyway. But we still do all of this as a precaution to protect people. And because it's the law.
Only the US puts warnings both at butchers and on packages for meat products. It’s has to do our prevalence of food borne diseases caused by our lax regulation and food handling standards. Europe doesn’t have the large meat borne ecoli outbreaks like the US. They’re outbreaks are through vegetables. You can eat raw hamburger(beef tartar) with little risk of getting sick in Europe. You be foolish to grab ground beef at a US supermarket and it eat it raw.
> Europe doesn’t have the large meat borne ecoli outbreaks like the US. They’re outbreaks are through vegetables. You can eat raw hamburger(beef tartar) with little risk of getting sick in Europe.
Do you have any solid data or can you cite any analysis of per-capita STEC infections, categorized by infection vector, for the US and EU?
Also, steak tartare is made of steak, not trim. I'm not convinced that it makes for a valid comparison.
Woah... that seems like a huge deal to me