MONTEREY, CALIF. ? Fresh-spinach packaging plants were inspected only half as often as they should have been, said a congressional report released last week.

And when objectionable conditions were found, no enforcement action was taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the five years leading up to the September 2006 E. coli bacteria outbreak that sickened hundreds, caused three deaths and resulted in a spinach recall, the report said.

The report, “FDA and Fresh Spinach Safety,” was prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, based on a review of FDA records from 2001 to 2007.

According to the report:

¢ Packaged spinach facilities were inspected only once every 27 months, less than half of the Food and Drug Administration’s stated goals.

¢ The FDA found objectionable conditions in 47 percent of 199 inspections of plants during the period that turned up 93 “objectionable conditions,” the most common of which involved plant sanitation, plant construction and worker sanitation.

More than 60 percent of the inspections finding objectionable conditions showed problems with facility sanitation, including unclean restrooms and accumulations of litter.

¢ The FDA did not refer any of these problems found during inspections to its own enforcement agencies, and in only one case did the administration refer an inspection finding to the state for further action. Nor did the FDA issue warning letters or pursue legal actions, such as seizures or injunctions.

¢ In 38 of the cases, the FDA observed repeated violations but did not force corrections. Rather it continued to request voluntary compliance by the food processors. In 14 cases, these repeat requests for compliance were for the same violations.

¢ During the years prior to the E. coli outbreak, which was traced to packaging facilities operated by Natural Selection Food LLC, the FDA conducted multiple inspections of Natural Selection Food plants and repeatedly found problematic conditions at a number of them, the report says.

But according to inspection records, the FDA did not require the firm to correct these conditions, even after laboratory tests indicated microbial contamination at the exact site – Natural Selection’s San Juan Bautista, Calif., plant – later implicated in the 2006 outbreak.