These days, you might shun french fries for political reasons – remember freedom fries? – but Jeanne M. Manson, for one, believes they’re perfectly safe to eat.

That might not be noteworthy except for this: A 2002 Swedish study found that frying or baking starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes at high temperatures produced acrylamide, a white, odorless chemical known to cause cancer and reproductive problems in laboratory rats fed high doses.

Suddenly, people wondered: Are we talking killer carbs here?

Manson says no, citing work done earlier this year by a panel of scientists who reviewed the evidence on acrylamide exposure and possible links to reproductive or developmental damage in animals and humans. Manson, a researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who studies the role of genes and the environment in birth defects, chaired the panel.

Not everyone considers the case closed.

The German government is encouraging chefs to alter cooking methods to lower acrylamide levels in potatoes. A prominent consumer advocate thinks the government ought to limit acrylamides in food. And some researchers are calling for more study.

Scientists who studied the data with Manson concluded that although acrylamide may harm workers who are exposed to it, the amount found in a typical American diet is too low to pose a danger. The panel was convened by the National Toxicology Program’s Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.

“The take-home message is that there’s not a lot to worry about here,” Manson said. “It takes a humongous dose to get even minimal adverse effects in animals,” she said, suggesting the usual human exposure to acrylamide is about 10,000 times less than that.

(“I don’t have a problem eating french fries,” she added. Except that she doesn’t – she’s on the Atkins diet.)

Acrylamide is used in treating water and making glue, paper, cosmetics and permanent-press fabrics. It’s in cigarette smoke and, as the Swedes discovered, many cooked foods, from breakfast cereal and coffee to taco shells and bread. The highest levels are found in starchy foods – such as french fries – that are fried or deep-fried.

Americans eat about 24 pounds of fries per capita per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This may explain why the 2002 study spurred scientists such as A. Philip Handel to look more closely at what makes the ubiquitous fry a fry.

Handel, an associate professor of food science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, studies the chemistry of deep-fat frying and its relationship to food and oil quality. He is no fry freak – “hardly ever eat ’em,” he says – but he is working with U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers to determine whether frying potatoes at lower temperatures for longer times reduces acrylamide levels.

German chefs have also looked at how to drop frying temperatures while preserving the crispness so treasured by consumers, a method the German government now encourages private industry to adopt.

David R. Lineback, another food scientist who rarely eats french fries, calls the process “golding, as opposed to browning” – and said Belgium and the Netherlands are looking at it, too.

Lineback directs the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, run by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the University of Maryland. He believes more large, longterm acryalmide studies are needed.

“The preliminary data we have does not show cause for concern,” he said, “but we just don’t have enough information yet.”

Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, wants immediate government-mandated limits on acrylamide in food, citing yet another study last year that suggested the chemical causes several thousand new cancer cases a year in the United States.

“We’ve known for 2 ½ years that this is something the public should be concerned about,” Jacobson said. “It’s a real cop-out to say it needs more study.”

But over at the American Council on Science and Health, another consumer group, spokesman Jeff Stier described a public weary of “food scares” such as acrylamide.

“When you start telling consumers this is dangerous, that’s dangerous, they start ignoring everything,” he said. “They figure, ’I just got to live my life.’”

Some fast-food companies have been sued in California, with plaintiffs demanding “cancer hazard” labels on fries even as the research continues. The state’s Proposition 65, a 1986 right-to-know law, requires warning labels on anything with known risks – from gas stations to liquor stores.

“All this does confuse people,” said Handel, who offers some advice: “Don’t overdo anything. If you live on a diet of french fries, you have a problem – and not just with acrylamides.”

Andy McDevitt, 27, a construction inspector from Drexel Hill, Pa., near Philadelphia, swears he eats a healthful diet most of the time. But one day recently, outside the McDonald’s at 30th Street Station, he was indulging his passion for “greasy food.”

Between bites of burger and fries, he offered his take on the acrylamide controversy: “I don’t really care,” he said.