when making royal icing with egg whites, isn't salmonella a concern? can you heat the egg whites first, then make it?
You can use pasteurized egg whites (available in a carton at the grocery store) or meringue powder.
Definitely don't heat the egg whites! The kill temperature for salmonella is 160 degrees, and by that time your egg whites will be a glob of rubber. 
I don't personally worry about contaminated eggs. Just use fresh eggs, be careful breaking them, and wash your hands. The chance of an egg being contaminated with salmonella is less than 1 in 20,000.
thanks! i won't use meringue powder or grocery store egg whites though. i only use eggs from a local farmer that i know for a fact treats his chickens humanely. (the egg industry essentially tortures chickens, even many so called "cage free" or "organic" eggs). but if the risk is that small, than i guess it isn't too much of a concern.
You should be fine. According to the wikipedia article on eggs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_(food)
The risk of infection from raw or undercooked eggs is dependent in part upon the sanitary conditions under which the hens are kept. Some smaller egg producers make a point of keeping their hens in cleaner (and, in their view, more humane) conditions, and observe few or no cases of salmonella in the birds themselves.[citation needed]
Recent evidence suggests the problem is not as prevalent as once thought. A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this year (Risk Analysis April 2002 22(2):203-18 ) showed that of the 69 billion eggs produced annually, only 2.3 million of them are contaminated with salmonella - equivalent to just one in every 30,000 eggs.
Egg shells act as hermetic seals which guard against bacteria entering, but this seal can be broken through improper handling or if laid by unhealthy chickens. Most forms of contamination enter through such weaknesses in the shell.
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