On Friday, when Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced his resignation from the Bush Cabinet, he said: “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do.”

By Sunday morning, he was being pelted with criticism that he literally fed a credible idea to terrorists that could be used to harm Americans.

Did he? Or did he merely use his very public resignation announcement – when he was assured media attention – as an opportunity to raise national awareness of a danger that may not have occurred to the average American?

The idea that terrorists might contaminate our food supply is not new. The world of fiction writing is packed with this story line, and has been for years.

Twenty-two years ago, someone killed seven people in Chicago by simply buying bottles of Tylenol, contaminating the contents with cyanide and returning the product to store shelves.

It was a pre-terrorist, very low-tech crime that killed seven people. The concept that a worldwide network of exquisitely financed terrorists could use the same or bolder techniques to wipe out hundreds or thousands of Americans is not far-fetched. It’s realistic.

Thompson is not a troublemaker. He didn’t bring the subject of food contamination up to make the administration squirm. He is genuinely concerned about our food supply.

In July 2003, the Food and Drug Administration submitted a progress report – prompted by the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – to Thompson summarizing what the agency is already doing to ensure the safety and security of the nation’s food supply and recommending a 10-point plan to combat terrorist threats to foods and the critical infrastructures that produce those foods.

In that report, the FDA made it plain that “a terrorist attack on the food supply could pose both severe public health and economic impacts, while damaging the public’s confidence in the food we eat.”

That report was polished and filed 15 months ago and, yet, we wait for the 10-point protection plan to become our new reality. It hasn’t, and Thompson is right to worry and right to let citizens know he’s worried.

What? He keeps quiet and the problem doesn’t exist?

Not only is that just plain wrong, it’s also ridiculous.

As uncomfortable as it might be for Thompson, we hope the criticism boils around the secretary long enough to prompt policy changes that will truly protect our food supply on the national level. Our survival depends on it.