The Aug. 11 article "Lab site jumped to head of line," which highlighted political pandering in selecting the site for the National Bio and Agri-Defense Facility, made me wonder what the ultimate cost will be of the administration's making decisions in favor of special interest groups while abandoning science and, indeed, common sense.

If the government chooses Butner despite intense local opposition, it will locate the disease that could devastate the U.S. beef industry in the middle of a field of cows.

When there is a release of the disease from the facility, and the virus infects the cows a few hundred feet away, and U.S. beef exports are banned worldwide, everyone will ask what they were thinking.

The common sense solution -- to keep the diseases on the island where the research is currently done -- gets only nominal consideration in the selection process because common sense has no Special Interest Group.

For a hundred years, federal law prohibited the introduction of live foot and mouth virus into the U.S. mainland, but recently that law was sidestepped to enable the Department of Homeland Security to do what it is supposed to be preventing terrorists from doing -- all in the interest of appeasing special interests and, probably, filling someone's pockets.

Dave Pullin, Wake Forest

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