any experts say that a rising furor over a new report that many starchy foods, including breads, cereals and French fries, are laced with a chemical that could cause cancer is overblown.

The chemical is acrylamide, which, Swedish scientists reported last week, is produced when certain carbohydrates are baked or fried at high temperatures. The scientists have not published a paper on their small study. Instead, they made their announcement at a news conference last week.

Shortly afterward, the World Health Organization announced it would "organize an expert consultation as soon as possible to determine the full extent of the public health risk from acrylamide in food."

But many experts said yesterday that it made no sense to be alarmed over unpublished data on a chemical that was very unlikely to have a measurable impact on cancer rates.

"It's just dumb, dumb, dumb," Dr. Stephen Safe, a professor of toxicology at Texas A&M University. "There are carcinogens in everything you eat. Maybe they'll just ban food."

Others agreed.

"We're exposed to a huge background of natural chemicals that cause cancer in rats," said Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold, who directs the Carcinogenic Potency Project at the University of California. Some of those chemicals are in foods like fruits and vegetables that are thought to help prevent cancer.

It is not even clear if acrylamide causes cancer in humans, said Dr. John Boice Jr., who is scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. He said large studies of workers who were exposed to acrylamide, including one involving more than 8,000 people, failed to find any increase in their cancer risk. The Environmental Protection Agency classifies acrylamide as a "probable" human carcinogen because the only evidence that it causes cancer comes from rat studies; there is not even suggestive evidence that it causes cancer in humans.

That acrylamide might cause cancer in rats does not in and of itself give cause for panic, Dr. Gold said. "People have lost the forest for the trees," she said.

The Swedish scientists, she noted, said that the chemical might be produced naturally in the body, raising the question of whether the acrylamide in foods would be a cancer hazard.

Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, who is president of the American Council on Science and Health, a public health group financed by foundations, trade associations, companies and individuals, noted that many foods contained substances that cause cancer in rodents. Cherry tomatoes have benzaldehyde, caffeic acid, hydrogen peroxide, quercetin and glycosides, she said, and broccoli has allyl isothocyanate. But consumption of tomatoes and broccoli have been reported to reduce cancer risk.

When it comes to acrylamide, however, several scientists said the Swedish results, released by Dr. Leif Busk and Dr. Karl-Erik Hellenas of the Swedish government's National Food Administration in Uppsala, raised more questions than they answered. The scientists tested few samples and had results that ranged widely.

In 15 samples of breakfast cereals, for example, the concentration of acrylamide went from undetectable to more than 1,400 micrograms per kilogram. In 14 samples of potato chips, it went from 330 to 2,300 micrograms per kilogram. The Swedish scientists said that their study indicates that Swedes, on average, consume about 40 micrograms per day of acrylamide.

Dr. Gold said that level was equivalent on a body-weight basis to 1/700 of the dose of acrylamide that gives tumors to 10 percent of rats, an exposure ratio similar to other naturally occurring chemicals in the diet like furfural, which is in bread and coffee.

Dr. Michael F. Jacobson, who is executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Washington, said that he was not ready to dismiss the Swedish findings.

"The government needs to make sure the Swedes are right," Dr. Jacobson said. "And if they are, then the government needs to test a wide range of American foods to understand the depths of the problem."

Meanwhile, he said, it would be prudent to avoid foods like potato chips and French fries, which are known to contain lots of health-damaging fat as well as acrylamide.

Dr. Gold said that a more prudent course would be for people to avoid the major known sources of human cancer, like smoking cigarettes.

In the meantime, several scientists said, they would like to read the Swedish results after they have been vetted by a reputable scientific journal.

"I look forward to the paper," Dr. Gold said.