But this was not enough for the EWG, which has demanded Stossel be fired immediately for this outrageous breach of journalistic ethics. The major problem, though, seems to be one of form over substance. Stossel was trying to say that, as far as pesticides are concerned, organic produce is not safer than conventional produce. And Stossel is correct. Traces of pesticides are found on organic and conventional produce that s not news.
Organic foods acquire pesticide residues from water runoff, soil shifting and pesticides in the air.
Our tests show that organic doesn't necessarily mean pesticide free . Most importantly, however, pesticide residues found in food, whether organic or not, are virtually always well-within levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the EPA standards are set many hundreds of times below levels at which noticeable effects may be observed in laboratory animals. This is why no disease has ever been documented that stems from legal applications of pesticides, according to staunch pesticide opponent, Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. By his own admission, Stossel is a reformed television news consumer reporter. Stossel says of his early career, I did a lot of alarmist reporting.