Nearly 16 months after the local health board recommended posting food safety signs, they’re still at least a few months away, years after Toronto started with the red, yellow, green signs to advise wary consumers.

Jonathan Sher of the London Free Press (that’s in Ontario, Canada, not the U.K.) cited Jim Reffle, the director of environmental health at the London Middlesex Health Unit, as blaming the delay on a shuffling of bodies at city hall.

Reffle defended what, for Londoners, has been a decade-long wait to get the same protections offered in Toronto, a sign system that officials there linked to a 30% reduction in foodborne illness.

While Reffle first proposed a restaurant-inspection disclosure system in 2006, it took two years for he and the health board to agree on its details.

Many cities already disclose restaurant inspections, said Dr. Douglas Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, who taught at the University of Guelph and published work on the issue in the Journal of Food Service.

In cities that post inspection findings, diners often use them to select where to eat and restaurants strive for better compliance, he found.

You might think that would reduce foodborne illness, but the research in that area is inconclusive, he said.’