LINK TO AGENT ORANGE: UC Davis Cancer Center physicians say Vietnam War soldiers exposed to Agent Orange have greatly increased risks of prostate cancer and even greater risks of getting the most aggressive form of the disease, compared with those who were not exposed.

The findings, already published online and due to appear in the Sept. 15 issue of the journal Cancer, are the first to reliably link the herbicide with this form of cancer by studying a large population of men in their 60s and by using the prostate-specific antigen test to screen for the disease.

"While others have linked Agent Orange to cancers such as soft-tissue sarcomas, Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, there is limited evidence so far associating it with prostate cancer," said Karim Chamie, lead author of the study and resident physician with the UC Davis Department of Urology and the Department of Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care System.

The study took in more than 13,000 veterans, some exposed and the others not exposed to Agent Orange from 1962 to 1971. Based on medical evaluations conducted between 1998 and 2006, the study revealed that twice as many men exposed to Agent Orange were identified with prostate cancer.

-- Karen Finney, UC Davis Health System

BLAMING BUSH: People who know someone who died in the Iraq War or Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are less likely to approve of President Bush's performance in office than those with no such connection, according to new research from UC Davis. The pattern holds true for Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, and across all races, ages, education levels and incomes.

The research appears in the August issue of American Sociological Review, the journal of the American Sociological Association.

"A personal tie to a victim con-verts abstract, distant costs of international violence into a vivid, personal and profoundly emotional experience, one that has clear, strong and consistent political implications," said political science professor Scott Sigmund Gartner, the study's author, who arrived at his conclusions by analyzing two large public opinion polls: a 2006 Gallup survey and a 2001 Field Poll.

-- Claudia Morain