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Killing most bacteria is a function of temperature and time. The higher the heat, the less time it has to be at that temperature. The lower the heat, the longer it has to be at that temperature. It's all a numbers game. Nothing is completely safe.

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That's not entirely true. If you for instance "cook" meat at 100 degrees you'd end up with more bacteria than you started with. You do need to cook at a temperature that is hot enough to actually kill the bacteria. It's not a numbers game at all, it's understanding a little microbiology.

Nothing is completely safe, but food poisoning is also not fun.

I highly recommend that anyone read this information before attempting sous vide. It outlines the various bacteria involved and the time/temp calculations for various items:

http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html

128f and above, with the caveat that pasteurization takes a lot longer at 128f than it does at 150f.

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