AP: U.S. failed to boost produce inspections (after last year's spinach deaths)

Excepts AP report at Yahoo.com (title indicated above):

Government regulators never acted on calls for stepped-up inspections of leafy greens after last year's deadly , leaving the safety of America's salads to a patchwork of largely unenforceable rules and the industry itself, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The regulations governing farms in this central California region known as the nation's "Salad Bowl" remain much as they were when bacteria from a cattle ranch infected spinach that killed three people and sickened more than 200.

AP's review of data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act found that federal officials inspect companies growing and processing salad greens an average of just once every 3.9 years. Some proposals in Congress would require such inspections at least four times a year.

In California, which grows three-quarters of the nation's greens, processors created a new inspection system but with voluntary guidelines that were unable to keep bagged spinach tainted with salmonella from reaching grocery shelves last month.

Despite widespread calls for spot-testing of processing plants handling leafy greens following last year's E. coli outbreak, California public health inspectors have not been given the authority to conduct such tests, so none have been done, the AP review found.

"We have strict standards for lead paint on toys, but we don't seem to take the same level of seriousness about something that we consume every day," said Darryl Howard, whose 83-year-old mother, Betty Howard, of Richland, Wash., died as a result of E. coli-related complications.

She was one of two elderly people to die in the outbreak that began in August 2006 and also included the death of a child and sicknesses reported from more than 200 people from Maine to Arizona.

By mid-September, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a two-week nationwide warning not to eat fresh spinach. Authorities eventually traced the likely source of the E. coli to a cattle ranch about 40 miles east of .

But a regulatory backlash never happened.

State Sen. Dean Florez, a Central Valley Democrat who sponsored three failed bills to enact mandatory regulations for leafy greens earlier this year, said momentum faded as the E. coli case dropped from the headlines and the industry lobbied hard for self-regulation.

...

On Aug. 29, Metz Fresh, a grower and shipper in King City, 30 miles south of Salinas, recalled 8,000 cartons of fresh spinach tainted with salmonella. Auditors had visited the company a few weeks before, but inspected a field where the produce was clean. So they noted nothing unusual in their report.

Harkin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., are both working on bills to develop a set of mandatory national guidelines to supercede the current patchwork of food safety regulations.

Similar proposals were developed a year ago, but none have gone forward.

In March, the Bush Administration issued a draft of its guidance to minimize microbial hazards of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Unlike the strict hazard-control program governing meat and poultry, the guidance included no new laws.

Many growers and producers are either unaware of the guidelines or simply aren't complying, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group.

"Inspection alone isn't going to fix the problem, unless the farmers utilize food-safety plans that are effective for controlling pathogens," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of the center's food safety division. "They're not getting at the source of the contamination: on the farm."

tags: spinach  food safety  leafy greens  

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