From the Monterey County Herald:

The methyl iodide "controversy" has reached a point where I feel I must say something or be forever ashamed that I did not speak out. The media have been complicit in the situation by their blind acceptance of any nonsense that many putative "experts" choose to put on paper without any verification of facts whatsoever.

There have been several letters to the editors of local newspapers recently, and they all have a similar tone to their opinions. Could they have had a common source? I am also somewhat surprised that the local farming industry, or at least their representative organizations, such as the Farm Bureau or the California Strawberry Commission, have not been more vigorous in their response to these "propaganda sheets" and their misrepresentations.

This whole dispute has been manufactured from the beginning. When the strawberry industry began using methyl bromide in the 1960s, it was seen as a godsend to growers, and it was. Strawberries could not be grown in the same ground for at least five years after the previous crop because of the presence of verticillium wilt (a bacterium) and other diseases.

For more, see: Methyl iodide a casualty of junk science