Freaking out over bioterrorism?

Over the last few days, the sensationalist media attempted to paint a picture of bioterror attack on a college campus. A student at UT Austin found a white, clumpy substance in a roll of coins and reported it to authorities. This substance was supposedly tested by a local lab as "positive" for the toxic substance Ricin. Mainstream media outlets trumped headlines such as "Ricin discovered in Texas dorm"
Now, after the machine of homeland security and the FBI had gotten involved, it appears all this was a case of a false positive test - the sample of white gunk was not ricin after all, just the usual white gunk that probably collects in dorm rooms throughout this country.
Lost in all this freaking out is a simple, critical question - how reliable is the test for Ricin? Could the test result be a false positive? Why didn't the media even mention that the test for this substance could have been a false positive?
For those following the fear and sensationalism surrounding the United States invasion of Iraq, you might recall false and misleading stories of Ricin found in Iraq training camps for terrorists. MSNBC broke an "exclusive" and utterly shameless story highlighting the discovery of ricin and botulinum toxins from a boot with white gunk on the sole that was taken from a camp in Iraq. A lab had tested a swab of this gunk and was tested with almost "100% certainty".
We in America need to be more critical. Any test, no matter how great, is subject to failure to detect or false detections - what are called false negatives and false positives.
The real question that arises is why don't we have a reliable test to detect Ricin? After the billions being spent on homeland security, we can't even tell if we're dealing with an agent of bioterror or harmless gunk in a dorm room?!
Too bad our questionless society appears to only revel in sensationalist fear rather than reasoned inquiry into such matters.