Study Finds Far Less Pesticide Residue on Organic Produce 
MARIAN BURROS / NY Times 8may02

The first detailed scientific analysis of organic fruits and vegetables, published today, shows that 
they contain a third as many pesticide residues as conventionally grown foods.

The findings, published in the Food Additives and Contaminants Journal, confirmed what 
consumers of organic food have taken for granted but did not settle the argument over whether 
organic food is safer than conventional food treated with chemical pesticides.

The debate gained prominence in February 2000 when John Stossel, a correspondent on the 
ABC News program "20/20," reported that testing had proved that the levels of pesticide residues 
in conventional produce were similar to those in organic produce, making organic claims a fraud. 
Though Mr. Stossel retracted his statement — such testing had never been conducted — his 
report alarmed proponents of organic agriculture and those like Consumers Union who do not 
oppose the use of synthetic pesticides but want stricter standards. 

Edward Groth III, a senior scientist at Consumers Union and a co-author of the report, said: 
"There have been some very strong opinions voiced about organic produce that haven't been 
based on data and have confused the issue. This report shows rather convincingly and 
compellingly that organic foods are much less likely to have any residues; that when they have 
residues they have fewer and that the levels of the residues are generally lower."

The findings are based on pesticide residue data collected on a wide variety of foods by the 
United States Department of Agriculture from 1994 to 1999, tests conducted on food sold in 
California by the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation from 1989 through 1998, and tests 
by Consumers Union in 1997. The combined data covered more than 94,000 food samples from 
more than 20 crops; 1,291 of those samples were organically grown, about 1.3 percent.

The Agriculture Department data showed that 73 percent of the conventionally grown foods had 
residue from at least one pesticide and were six times as likely as organic to contain multiple 
pesticide residues; only 23 percent of the organic samples of the same groups had any residues.

The California data found residues in 31 percent of the conventional food and 6.5 percent in the 
organic. Consumer Union tests found residues on 79 percent of the conventional samples and 27 
percent on the organic.

The study also looked at why organic foods contained any pesticide residues. When residues of 
persistent insecticides, like DDT, were excluded, the percentage of organic samples with residues 
dropped to 13 percent from 23. 

The findings were minimized by opponents of organic agriculture, like the American Council on 
Science and Health, which gets 40 percent of its financing from industry.

"So what?" said the council's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "The health risks associated with pesticide 
residues on food are not at all established. I think the amount of pesticide residues to which we 
are exposed on our foods pose no significant health risks to human beings."

The Environmental Protection Agency disagrees and has been working to reduce pesticide levels 
since 1996. 

Dr. Groth said the amount of residues in conventional food was well below the level that is clearly 
unsafe but above the level scientists say is probably safe.

"There is a large gray area in between," Dr. Groth said, "and we need a wide safety margin which 
is not wide enough with conventional produce. This is especially true when we talk about infants 
and children because they are still developing."

Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy 
group financed by foundations, said, "The report shows what we suspected all along: if you want 
to reduce your exposure to pesticides, eating organic is a very good way." 

***************************

salon.com > Media Feb. 25, 2000
URL: http://www.salon.com/media/feature/2000/02/25/stossel

Prime-time propagandist 

Is ABC's John Stossel a reporter or a right-wing apparatchik? 

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By David Mastio

With Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings, ABC News can boast twin towers of journalistic integrity in 
an increasingly tabloid TV news environment. Then there's John Stossel. Sure, he's conservative, 
opinionated and contrarian. But the edge his sometimes unorthodox opinions give his segments 
on "20/20" and his ABC News one-hour specials certainly is a positive contribution against the 
daily fluff.

So, it's unfortunate that while ABC News has been looking the other way, Stossel has been 
transformed from a right-leaning bomb-thrower of prime-time news into a full-fledged 
propagandist in the classroom. The transformation was fostered by an affiliation among ABC 
News, Stossel and the conservative Palmer R. Chitester Fund, which sells educational materials 
based on Stossel's ABC reporting. The arrangement touches on the fundamental ethical question 
of whether or not journalists and the news organizations they work for should align themselves 
with ideologically driven organizations.

To untangle the snarl of conflicts Stossel has created would take a graduate level journalism 
seminar, but here are the Cliffs Notes:

"Stossel in the Classroom" is a series of study aids that includes Stossel's popular ABC News 
special reports, accompanied by study guides written by two conservative economics instructors 
at George Mason University. The study guides are emblazoned with a big blue ABC News logo 
and Stossel's face. ABC News and Stossel had almost nothing to do with the development of 
"Stossel in the Classroom," but the product is deceptively packaged to look like an ABC product.

According to the Chitester Fund Web site, the program is sold to more than 200 public and 
private schools across the country, who pay about $300 for the series. "Stossel in the Classroom" 
is advertised in School Reform News, a publication of the conservative Heartland Institute.

One contributor to the "Stossel in the Classroom" series is the John M. Olin Foundation, an 
organization that popped up regularly in stories detailing Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing 
conspiracy" during the investigation and impeachment of President Clinton. For three decades, 
the Olin Foundation has funded many of the most influential institutions and individuals on the 
right. Board member and conservative columnist Walter Williams' professorship at George Mason 
University is also underwritten by Olin.

Chitester Fund is a conservative foundation, sporting John Fund of the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Williams among others on its boards. Text on 
the Chitester Fund Web site describes the organization's mission: "We are particularly interested 
in illuminating the prerequisites of a free society -- (with an) emphasis on projects that examine 
the role of government and explain the interrelationship of economic, personal and political 
freedom," code for a closeted conservative group.

Though Stossel's special reports for ABC News are conservative, they're also good journalism. 
He doesn't pull any punches against Republican sacred cows from big business lobbyists to B-2 
bombers. But "Stossel in the Classroom" crosses the line between edgy journalism and pure 
propaganda.

The study guide section on robber barons, for example, (based on Stossel's "Greed" special) 
doesn't mention the word monopoly. In a "case study" on John D. Rockefeller, the word does pop 
up, but only to argue that oil tycoon Rockefeller wasn't a monopolist. But at least Stossel takes 
the time to explain that, often, monopolies come to be not because of market failure, but because 
of government favors for business.

Another guide (accompanying Stossel's "Scaring Ourselves to Death") snidely attacks the 
government for changing dietary recommendations to emphasize fruits and vegetables over meat 
and dairy products. Ironically, most of the critics of the health scares Stossel debunks in his 
special are big believers in just those health recommendations. People like Bruce Ames, an 
internationally reknowned scientist and vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency 
believe that lower fat, higher fruit and vegetable diets fight cancer and other health problems, just 
like the government does. Here's the last sentence of that guide: "Will headline hysteria and 
federal regulatory agencies continue to divorce public policy from reality?"

Many, if not most, of the 35 to 40 footnotes accompanying each guide cite predictably 
conservative sources like the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute, the Hoover Institution, the 
Young Americas Foundation and the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. They're not exactly the 
sources a skeptical reader would find convincing. 

Chitester board member and George Mason University professor Williams is also a major on-air 
presence in two of the three Stossel specials sold by the organization, but he is only identified as 
an economist. Incidentally, Williams supervises the work of Thomas Rustici and Alan Koczela, the 
economics instructors who wrote the classroom materials for "Stossel in the Classroom" at 
George Mason. Rustici's George Mason bio describes his participation in the Chitester project 
like this: "He is the editor and coauthor of a series of free market books for high school students 
that will accompany a video series by John Stossel of ABC."

The connections among Chitester, Stossel and ABC News and the level of cooperation involved 
in the project have been considerable. Stossel is a financial contributor to Chitester (he's even 
been known to donate his hefty lecture fees to the organization) and a vice president at ABC 
News admits that he helped edit one of the study guides. Chitester is also the registered owner of 
the stossel.org, johnstossel.com and johnstossel.org domain names on the Internet. 
(johnstossel.org is unused, stossel.org links to the Chitester site and johnstossel.com gives you 
the choice of moving on to ABC, the Chitester Fund or the Web site of another charity Stossel is 
involved with.) ABC News gets a cut on all sales of Chitester's sales of the series, but neither 
organization will say how big it is.

Given a week and dozens of phone calls and e-mails, Stossel wouldn't explain himself and the 
study guide authors at George Mason University were "unavailable."

Williams, however, defends the project. "The study guides just elaborate on some of the 
economic principles in Stossel's shows in as truthful a fashion as possible," he argued, also 
stating that they weren't propagandistic. But when presented with specific examples from the text 
he admitted there were problems. For instance, where the authors write, "Another common myth 
asserts that a nation's wealth depends on labor unions. Unions do not create wealth." Williams 
concedes, "That might be misleading language." Williams is right -- anyone who has ever covered 
unions knows that their premise is that they redistribute wealth from the owners and managers of 
companies to the workers, not that the union "creates" wealth.

And Williams sees no problem with serving both as a source for Stossel and a promoter of his 
work. Further, Williams argues that just because an ABC News logo appears on the cover of 
study guides written by the GMU economics instructors, nobody would assume that ABC News 
had anything to do with the content -- even though the authors' names don't appear until the 
inside cover at the back of the book.

Richard Wald, senior vice president of editorial quality at ABC News, originally signed off on the 
deal. Wald readily admitted that he had read only one of the three study guides. He said he was 
unaware of the Chitester Funds' conservative economic agenda, that Stossel gave them money 
and that Williams was on the fund's board.

When asked about the fact that the authors' names don't appear until the end of the book, Wald 
finally admitted, "Maybe it is a bad idea, maybe we should have drawn a better line."

Bob Chitester, founder and president of the Chitester Fund, believes the matter boils down to a 
business misunderstanding. "There was some confusion," he says, "our written agreement did 
not speak to any editorial role for ABC, but now we've adjusted our process."

Chitester is a combative interview subject, starting each answer with "You're a liar!" or "That's not 
true, you're making it up." Any questions about the ethics of this deal are "just made up," too, he 
said.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because the Los Angeles Times found itself in a similar situation 
last fall when it agreed to share revenues from its Sunday magazine with Staples Center, the 
subject of a special issue.

Far less money changed hands in the ABC News-Stossel deal, but in some respects, the ABC 
deal is more ominous. No one alleges that the Los Angeles Times ever allowed Staples Center to 
control the content that was published under its logo. ABC News did. And unlike the one-time Los 
Angeles Times-Staples alliance, ABC News' complicated relationship with Chitester Fund is 
ongoing.

In the end, it may not be ethics that determines the fate of "Stossel in the Classroom." The 
program has apparently been unpopular with instructors. Chitester said that the student guides 
are being rewritten in response to negative feedback from the teachers who were using them. 
"There are some sections where the authors went beyond economics, so they have to change."

As Stossel himself said in an interview a few years ago, "All we have in the news is our 
reputation. People have a hundred choices for news now." 

********************

GIVE US A FAKE 
The Case Against John Stossel

Kenneth Cook is president of the Environmental Working Group.

"Do you think organic food is healthier and safer for you and your family and the planet? Millions 
of people do. But could all of them be wrong? Could they be?" 

-ABC News Anchor Barbara Walters "20/20 Friday," February 4, 2000 

On Friday, February 4, 2000, ABC News's highly rated magazine program "20/20" broadcast a 
devastating report that created an uproar in the rapidly growing, $6 billion organic food industry. 
Unfortunately, according to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) investigation, correspondent 
John Stossel based his report on test results that were fabricated in one instance and badly 
distorted in another. The falsified scientific evidence undermines the truth of the entire story. 

"The Food You Eat - Organic Foods May Not Be As Healthy As You Think," as the segment was 
entitled, was introduced by ABC News Anchor Barbara Walters as a "special and surprising 
report" by Mr. Stossel. This format was a departure from his trademark, "Give Me A Break," 
contrarian commentaries that are a fixture on "20/20." 

For the millions who watched the original broadcast the Stossel piece seemed to offer compelling 
proof that consumers of organic foods were very wrong, indeed, about the benefits of organic 
products. Even more consumers saw the program when ABC News re-aired Stossel's 
investigation on "20/20" on July 7, or in the somewhat condensed form the news division 
distributed July 11 for use by its affiliates, through ABC's "World News Now." 

Stossel's hard-hitting story purported to showed that organic food, far from being safer or 
healthier, was no different with respect to pesticide contamination than regular food, because 
neither one had any pesticide residues. Buying organic to avoid pesticides, the show conveyed, 
was a waste of money. 

And when it came to the bacteria that cause food poisoning, "20/20" viewers might have been 
shocked to hear the show report that organic food is actually more dangerous than "regular" food. 
At the story's dramatic high point, Stossel held up a bag of organic lettuce and confronted the 
head of the organic industry's trade association: "Shouldn't we do a warning that says this stuff 
could kill you and buying organic could kill you?" he demanded. 

What gave "The Food You Eat" its exceptional investigative heft, however, were the original 
laboratory tests that Stossel reported early in the broadcast. Specially commissioned and paid for 
by ABC News to compare the safety of organic and conventional food, the tests supposedly lent 
powerful scientific authority to a story that otherwise might have been just another televised duel 
between opposing experts. 

ABC News's own studies showed that neither organic nor regular produce had pesticide residues, 
Stossel reported. Likewise, the network's lab studies turned up "the real bad news for organic 
consumers" that Stossel emphasized in the program: the risk of serious, even fatal food 
poisoning from bacteria-contaminated organic produce. 

What made the ABC News lab studies even more significant and more central to his reporting 
was Stossel's explanation that they were the first of their kind. 

"We searched the records and found there have been no tests done that actually compare 
bacteria counts in organic vs. normal food," Stossel told "20/20" viewers. "So we did our own 
laboratory testing." 

In fact, the pesticide tests that Stossel claimed were conducted for ABC News to examine 
pesticides on produce--the results of which he reported on "20/20"--were never conducted at all, 
according to the scientists the network hired to perform laboratory studies for Stossel's 
investigation. ABC News broadcast the fabricated results four times in the course of airing 
Stossel's investigation on three separate dates. 

Laboratory analyses for bacterial contamination were conducted for ABC News. But according to 
the scientists ABC News hired to conduct and evaluate them, those tests were incapable of 
proving the food safety problems Stossel attributed to the results. Moreover, "20/20's" Executive 
Director Victor Neufeld was informed of this crucial shortcoming -- and Stossel's serious distortion 
of the test results -- three months in advance of the original broadcast. 

When the journalistic abuses "20/20" committed are taken into account, however, almost nothing 
of substance remains of ABC News's sweeping indictment of the health and safety of organic 
food. 

What does remain is a stunning example of journalistic fraud. 

Immediately after the first airing of the segment, EWG began a series of contacts with Stossel 
and his staff to inquire about the tests. These included a letter, the receipt of which was confirmed 
by Stossel's assistant on February 8, that raised concerns about the accuracy of the testing. 
EWG followed up this letter with successive phone calls, only to be told by Stossel's assistant that 
he would "never" respond to our letters or calls. We then contacted the segment's producer, 
David Fitzpatrick, who twice promised to send the results to us, but only delivered a form letter 
response. 

We made a total of at least twenty-five contacts to "20/20" --- including phone calls, faxes, emails 
and letters -- all of them requesting details about the pesticide tests. We also made clear that the 
scientist who conducted the E. coli tests said those tests could not detect the pathogenic strains 
that cause food poisoning. And he had not conducted pesticide tests. 

Nonetheless, Stossel and "20/20" chose to re-air the show and Stossel gave live commentary at 
the end of the rerun to again talk about what their pesticide tests had shown. 

Left uncorrected, the "20/20" story has the potential to do significant and lasting damage to the 
organic food industry, which depends on the integrity of its production claims to maintain its 
appeals to consumers. The fabrication and distortion of laboratory studies constitute 
impermissible violations of journalistic ethics and conduct on behalf of John Stossel and ABC 
News. 

Those abuses, the focus of this review, deserve a full public airing, and justify strong corrective 
actions on the part of ABC News against John Stossel for violating the basic tenet of journalism: 
tell the truth. 

FULL TEXT of EWG report http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/reports/givemeafake/stossel.html

*************************************
One-quarter of organic produce contains pesticides, study finds
By Philip Brasher, Associated Press
Wednesday, May 08, 2002

WASHINGTON — Think organic fruits and vegetables are free of pesticides? Think again. 

Almost one-fourth of the organic produce in grocery stores could contain traces of pesticides, 
including long-banned chemicals like DDT, scientists say. 

A Consumers Union–led study of government-collected data found pesticide residue on 23 
percent of organic fruits and vegetables and on nearly 75 percent of conventionally grown 
produce. 

The findings don't mean that any of the produce is unsafe. The residues are seldom even close to 
the limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency. 

"Consumers who seek to reduce their exposure to pesticide residues can do so reliably by 
choosing organic produce," the scientists wrote. "However, none of the choices available on the 
market is completely free of pesticide residues." 

The study is being published Wednesday in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants. 

Much of the residues found in organic crops were of organochlorine pesticides, chemicals 
including DDT and chlordane that plants can soak up from the soil decades after the products 
were used. Other chemicals could have been applied to the crops improperly or drifted onto the 
organic fields from adjacent farms, the scientists said. 

One sample of organic peaches contained 3.3 parts per million of the pesticide phosmet, 
suggesting the crop was sprayed shortly before harvest, the study said. "You normally think that 
organic are the ones without the pesticides," said Vicki Kirkbride, an Arlington, Va., executive 
shopping Tuesday at a Fresh Fields supermarket. A sign in the store said organic foods were 
"grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers." 

"It's very difficult to keep the food from contamination ... but I still say organic is a good idea," said 
Rodrigo Hurtado, a Washington physician. 

Although organic crops account for just 2 percent of U.S. fruit and vegetable acreage, the industry 
has been growing rapidly. Sales of organic foods reached $7.8 billion in 2000, a 20 percent 
increase from the year earlier, according to Packaged Facts, a market research firm. 

The study was based on sampling by the Agriculture Department and the state of California as 
well as by the scientists themselves. It did not take into account the many special pesticides that 
are approved for organic crops, including sulfur and bacteria sprays. Those products are 
generally considered less toxic than pesticides used by conventional farms, and government 
inspectors do not test for them. However, one natural pesticide used by organic farmers, 
pyrethrum, may cause cancer, and another is linked to neurotoxic effects in rats. The study called 
for more research on those pesticides. 

"Consumers need to recognize that organic production doesn't mean pesticide-free production," 
said Carl Winter, a food toxicologist at the University of California-Davis. "The best thing 
consumers can do is to eat large amounts of fruits and vegetables," he said. "Pesticides allow 
these to be produced in more abundant manner, making them more affordable and offering 
consumers greater variety." 

Some scientists also have raised concerns about the occurrence of mycotoxins on organic 
produce as well as the use of manure as fertilizer, which could carry harmful bacteria if not 
prepared properly. Mycotoxins, substances produced by fungi or bacteria, can be prevented with 
the use of conventional pesticides. 

The Agriculture Department data that were examined in the Consumers Union study showed 
residues on 7 of 30 samples of organic fruit, and 22 of 97 samples of organic vegetables, or 23 
percent of the total organic produce tested. Nine of 19 samples of organic spinach had pesticide 
traces, and 4 of 18 carrot samples. By comparison, pesticides were found on 73 percent of the 
26,571 samples of conventional foods that were tested. 

"Less is better," said Edward Groth, a senior scientist for Consumers Union, publisher of 
Consumer Reports. "Fewer residues and lower levels of residues are better than higher levels of 
residues and more residues." 

The tests also included some samples of "green-labeled" foods — fruits and vegetables that are 
sold with claims of reduced pesticide use. There were pesticide residues on about half the 
samples of those products. 

When the organochlorine chemicals were excluded from the analysis of organic foods, 13 percent 
showed positive for conventional pesticides.

***************************

WASHINGTON, May 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by Environmental Working 
Group (EWG) President Ken Cook: 

"Conventionally grown food has significantly higher levels of pesticides, and is contaminated with 
residues of multiple pesticides, far more frequently than organic food. And those lower pesticide 
levels translate into lower risk of cancer and other health effects for consumers who eat organic 
food, particularly children. 

"These are the key findings of the first detailed study comparing pesticide residues on tens of 
thousands of samples of organic and conventional foods. The study also found that farming 
methods designed to use pesticides more sparingly also result in food residue levels that are 
lower than in regular food. 

"In recent years, the federal government has restricted or banned a number of pesticides out of a 
growing scientific recognition of the special risk these chemicals pose to children's health. This 
study makes clear that the entire food supply can and should move in the direction of lower 
pesticide residues and thus lower health risks. The organic food industry is leading the way with a 
safer alternative. 

"Consumers know what to eat if they want to cut back on fat, calories or cholesterol. Now they 
know they should buy organic if they want to reduce pesticides in the foods they eat and feed 
their children." 

The study was published in the current (May, 2002) issue of Food Additives and Contaminants, a 
scientific journal. It was authored by Brian Baker, Charles Benbrook, Edward Groth and Karen 
Lutz Benbrook. 

EWG, a nonprofit environmental research organization, has published dozens of studies on the 
risks of pesticides to children. 

****************************