"Inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration are searching fields in Colorado's Rocky Ford region for clues as to how cantaloupes grown there this summer caused at least 100 illnesses and 18 deaths. But if a new law had been in place, they might have been there before the outbreak."

"The sweeping food-safety law President Barack Obama signed this year will require inspectors to regularly visit such fields to root out contamination before it makes anyone sick.

It will take years before the law can remake the system. The law will create the first-ever mandatory national safety standards for produce, requiring the FDA to conduct thousands of additional inspections each year.

Much like restaurant inspections that are meant to protect diners from getting sick, the new standards will compel the FDA to police farms and facilities where spinach, lettuce and other crops are grown, washed and packed."

Thomas M. Burton and Betsy McKay report for the Wall St. Journal Oct 7, 2011. [2]