The Ragin’ Cajun, politico-type James Carville, once said, “It’s easy to manufacture fear. It’s hard to manufacture test results.”

So while some 300,000 seafood samples from the Gulf of Mexico have been tested by U.S. Food and Drug Administration and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration labs – with almost every sample showing no trace of oil or dispersant – some individuals claim that “independent” tests reveal toxins in the local catch.

Don Kraemer,FDA’s deputy director in the Office of Food Safety, says the agency has been surprised by the number of media stories that give credibility to “junk science” and questionable lab tests.

“We‘ve learned some things through this process about public messaging, there were some environmental groups that we didn’t cater to, with our communications, and in retrospect, maybe we should have.

“We’re working now to address independent reports that aren’t scientifically sound. And we’ll continue to test seafood in the Gulf to demonstrate its safety.

“Oil spills have been around for a long time, so we know which markers are the right ones to test for to determine whether toxins are present. In this case, we knew which PAHs would be good markers and would clearly tell us whether oil was present.”