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A day after the acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of potential terrorist threats to the medicine supply, his top adviser for counterterrorism on Thursday said she knows of no specific information about such a danger.

Acting FDA head Lester Crawford's warning that terrorists could attack the United States using imported drugs also prompted a rebuttal by a Vermont official, who called terrorism and drug imports "totally unrelated" subjects. The state plans to sue the agency after failing to obtain approval to import drugs from Canada.

Citing a recent briefing he has received on al Qaeda's activities, Crawford told the Associated Press on Wednesday that "cues from chatter" were cause for concern about a food- or drug-borne attack. He said terrorists could try an attack similar to the 1982 Tylenol tampering case, in which seven people died after ingesting cyanide that had been placed in painkiller containers at Chicago stores.

Clarifying the warning, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told AP the department "must assume that such a threat exists generally" but has "no specific information now about any al Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply."

In an interview Thursday morning with Global Security Newswire, FDA Assistant Commissioner for Counterrorism Margaret Glavin said she was not present at the briefing cited by Crawford but believed no specific information indicated a threat to the drug supply. "There is not a contradiction" between Crawford's and Roehrkasse's appraisals, she said.

"I do not believe that Dr. Crawford referred to any specific or immediate threats," said Glavin, who heads the FDA Counterterrorism Office.

"Certainly," she said, "we have always had concerns that the products that we regulate - the food supply and the medicine supply - are potential targets, and we have made an effort to ensure that those are safe."

"It has always been seen that there is a possibility that these products could be vulnerable. We have for years dealt with tampering incidents, so they are certainly a potential problem," Glavin said.

Crawford's agency is at the center of an election-year controversy over whether to allow prescription-drug imports, primarily from Canada, in an attempt to give cash-strapped U.S. residents an alternative to high-priced domestic drugs. Vermont announced Wednesday that it plans to file a suit next week in a federal court over the agency's denial of the state's bid to start a pilot drug-import program.

On Wednesday, Crawford called illegally imported prescription drugs especially worrying. Last year, he told GSN he was specifically concerned about U.S. drugs sold to Canadian firms and reimported into the United States. Ottawa's ability to regulate such drugs, according to Crawford, is limited.

In an interview Thursday, Vermont Deputy Attorney General Wallace Malley said that, although he was not privy to the terrorism information Crawford cited, "To my knowledge, this issue is totally unrelated."

"There is not a terrorism aspect. One of the problems that we're facing is that we don't believe that the FDA gave us any cogent reason - security, safety or otherwise - for denying this. ... The FDA has abused its discretion in denying our petition for this pilot project," Malley said.

The liberal American Progress Action Fund on Thursday alleged Crawford's warning was a way for President George W. Bush's administration to use "the fear of terrorism" to justify opposition to Vermont's plan and to beat back presidential challenger John Kerry's call on Bush to approve drug imports for senior citizens. The center called the warning a "cynical, baseless and transparent" tactic.

"The move appears specifically designed to hide the Bush administration's adamant desire to protect the same pharmaceutical industry profits that fund its campaign," the center said.