flour: conventional Whole Wheat worse than Refined?

Someone has just told me that if you can't afford to buy organic wholewheat flour then you should buy refined because the 'nasty chemicals' are on the husk of the grain and if that's removed then the flour is almost as good as organic. Somehow this feels like crap. Can anyone shine any light on it that I can shine back at my 'friend' ?

When I saw this post, I thought and tried to find info online. I'm sure it's there, but I can't seem to find it.
I assumed someone would come along with something useful, but no, so I'm just going to make up some stuff...
My instincts say it's probably less unhealthy for a human to eat sprayed wholewheat flour than that refined stuff.
I'm actually less concerned about toxins affects on me, than on everything else, so by my logic, eating grain that's been sprayed AND had all the goodness removed is the worse option.
I don't have kids though, and they can have a big impact on people's choices.

Alison, did you get any useful info from elsewhere? Your question's been playing on my mind...

No I didn't but I've been thinking about it and I reckon it's crap. Any resdiue would be on the ear of the wheat, the grains being threshed out of that husk. Plus systemic chemicals would be right into the heart of any seed, regardless of removing the seed coating. So I reckon it was bs made up by a baker who preferred using white flour because it gave 'prettier' looking bread. Plus, here in France, there's a tradition going back to pre-revolution that only peasants eat wholemeal/brown bread as folk with money could afford the labour to have it sifted. It's very deep-seated. Funny how the mind-sets didn't change with the Revolution.

I couldn't find anything specific, but this link made me stop looking. It was depressing enough to just go without if we lost a local source. lol, I don't even want toast with breakfast this morning.

Removing the husks will at least protect you from the plant poisons residing in them,
and leave only the gut-destroying goodness of the seeds for your intestines to digest ...

I find this to be a good primer:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-grains-are-unhealthy/