Safety inspections still not up to par after recent spinach recalls

I guess it takes more than a national recall and a few deaths to really see changes in the way food inspections are done on fresh produce these days. At least, that is the thinking behind a recent AP investigation on the matter.

Leafy greens like spinach did not see stepped-up investigations and inspections after last year's deadly E. coli spinach outbreak. Why not? Well, if there's a national standard of testing with centralized control, maybe things would have changed. Barring that, it's no wonder the differing rules are a waste of effort in many cases.

As of now, the AP investigation found that the same regulations governing farms in the central California region remain pretty much as they did a year ago -- even after a spinach contamination that killed three people and sickened more than 200.