MEAT SAFETY
Food safety is important. Many people get poisoned by food that has not been prepared properly, from the hygienic point of view. Reports on food poisoning cases in restaurants and fast food chains are frequent. But we don't hear that much about food poisoning happening to people who make their own food. Of course, these things happen as well, as you can find out by contacting any hospital. It is therefore of importance to make sure you don't get ill or even die by eating wrong type of food. It is your responsibility, and you cannot really sue anyone if you get in trouble by acting in ignorance.
So, what can be bad about meat? A common type of food poisoning when it comes to meat (and also egg and unprocessed milk) is salmonella poisoning. What is salmonella? It is a bacteria that happens to like our stomach and intestines, but it likes them way too much for us to stay well. Since salmonella bacteria attacks the digestive tract, the symptoms that follow are usually diarrhoea or constipation, cramps, and/or vomiting. Sometimes, salmonella can enter the lymph system, and the blood, in which case the infection becomes even more serious. In any case, salmonella needs to be killed by antibiotics, so if you ever find yourself with these symptoms after eating a suspicious, not sufficiently cooked meal, then run to your doctor. Salmonella are known to survive in temperatures up to 60C/140F, so you need to cook your poultry, fish, meat or eggs in a higher temperature than that (although you don't need to overcook them!). Also, you cannot leave the food standing in temperatures between 5-60C/4-140F because that promotes the growth of bacteria, if there are any, and you never know (they can come from your fingers with which you touched your raw meat, for example). So, after cooking, if you have leftovers or want to refrigerate something, cool it down quickly on a cold water bath and store it in the cold.
The same prevention method goes for another feared bacteria - E. coli, and in particular, E. coli O157:H7, which is a variant among many types of E. coli, and the one that is very toxic to us. It causes bloody diarrhoea, and may cause kidney failure. Some people die. The tricky thing with O157:H7 is that it can live in animals wihout giving them any symptoms, and therefore can be carried over to the unsuspecting humans. So, don't play around with E. coli - cook your meat!
Yet another infection, although very rare nowadays, is not coming from bacteria but from a worm called Trichiina spiralis. The disease it causes is called trichinosis, which gives weak and tender muscles, edema, and often fever. Trichinosis has been mostly correlated with undercooked pork, although it can come from other meat as well, especially game meats. Once again, cooking the meat in about 70C/158F is enough to kill any resident Trichina worms.
The last kind of infection, if we can call it this way, is the mad cow disease. A few hundred people has died of it, and the risk of being afflicted with it is now very small due to the imposed slaughter of suspected and diseased cattle, as well as taking preventive actions. Mad cow disease poisoning is kind of strange. It is not caused by any living organism, but by a protein (called prion) that has been misfolded and tend to cause others protein's aggregation (a common result of having a bunch of misfolded proteins around). For this reason, we cannot eliminate mad cow disease by cooking our food. These proteins are immune to the heat, but they cause widespread brain damage.
Besides the above dangers of meat (and not only meat) eating, you should also have in mind some dangerous chemicals to avoid when cooking. The famous one is the nitrosamine family that can be acquired by eating nitrite cured meats (it is thought to cause cancer since it is damaging the DNA). Another two chemicals can be created due to a bad cooking technique. Firstly, heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that are formed when meat is fried or grilled at very high temperatures (avoid well done grilling then!). Secondly, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are made during burning of fat, which some people do when they grill their steaks over open fire or on coals. Both of these chemicals are carcinogenic!