we re all working together to ensure that the seafood is safe. but no one can be sure. that s because we don t know exactly how much oil is leaking. more importantly, exactly where it s going. we ve been talking to a lot of scientists, you may know some of this. but they say, you know, the oil as it starts to break out, they have all of the various countdowns that are not oil so to speak anymore. and they re the aromatic hydrocarbons. they can go all over the place. and that s what i think makes it so difficult. how do you know if it s not oil per se, but some toxic further away in an area that doesn t have oil. that s why this testing program deals both with the sensory to be able to detect oil and those aeromattic hydrocarbons and the analytical chemistry to detect the aeromattic hydrocarbons.
springtime, this critical time of year, when this and other organisms are breeding and eggs into the water, floating through it. a deadly toxic. so what we re seeing here, even though it s not that big, thick oil, this is still big, big trouble. pretty astounding to see those pictures. another big problem in the gulf. questions about whether the seafood is safe to eat. the fda has said that fish and seafood harvested from unaffected waters in the gulf are safe, and the government also says no contaminated products have played it to the market, or to your plate, but two big promises, but how can we actually be sure? so to find out, chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta spent some time at the place where seafood taken from the gulf is actually being tested. check this out. reporter: behind these doors, huge decisions are being made. tests that determine whether or not the seafood in the gulf is safe for us to eat.
gets viral on the internet as you ve seen in doing this i try not to read the internet, by the way. i don t either. i go up looking for things that people who are doing things that i can help them do in the midst of this. that s where i focus. the moratorium is controversial. do you support it? you know, i don t know? you you know, you could you could say that. but the economy is going to go to hell, you know? this is an oil-based economy. the thing that i think i want to do is look at i ve got little projects going. i go, that s a decision someone else is going to have to make on a bigger level. but we re doing things like we ve got a project where we ve got oil from the restaurants and fueling shrimp boats on them. is that right? oh yeah. that s something i can do. we re doing it. it s successful. ironically, people are going to me is, this thing, hopefully, will eventually get fixed. what are we going to do? go back to where we were?
randi kaye goes up close. reporter: when louisiana s health secretary sent this letter to bx p last week requesting $10 until in funding for mental health, he expected a speedy answer. days at most. this is what he received last week. if you noticed, in the last sentence, we need an answer by next week. reporter: that deadline has come and gone. no answer from bp. bp responded to the first request saying, it, quote, looked forward to continuing the dialogue. but the oil giant provided nothing. the money, if it ever comes, would be used to treat those experiencing emotional trauma since the spill. fishermen like lewis lund jr. who can no longer fish to support his family because of the oil. his wife says he s full of rage. he wants to go on a rampage, screaming, punching, hitting whatever he can do. he can t. he just can t get it out. it s stuck in there, bubbling.
replace the cap here. going to show you a close picture of that. right now, the cap is collecting some of the oil. it s going to take this cap away. and that s going to release the oil entirely for a while. so initially it s going to be an increase of oil from that part of it. then they re going to bring in what they hope is a tighter cap that they can bolt in to place and really seal down. when that happens, sanjay, they think they might be able to say that they truly get almost complete containment. they have vents in that to play with too to get complete containment. those are the major things happening this weekend, sanjay. such an important point too. it s like someone explained shaking up a bottle and trying to cap it. the cap will blow off. and what you re describing sounds promising and the admiral s comments sounded promising today. but is there something that could go wrong with this? is there a possible concern there? there s several concerns here. first of all, what if