Comments by UC Davis community members regularly appear in a variety of media outlets around the country. Among the recent citings in prominent publications:

The Washington Post on May 30 quoted Richard Kravitz, director of the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, and Michael Wilkes, vice dean of the Office of Medical Education, in an article about prescription drug advertising. They said they doubted the motives behind a drug company's new advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of a rare neurological condition called restless legs syndrome. "The argument the pharmaceutical industry is always making is that this is patient education," Wilkes said. "If you're talking about something like hepatitis C or measles, that might be true. But if you're talking about toenail fungus or baldness or restless leg syndrome, I just don't buy it." ...

Plant sciences professor Ted DeJong, commenting for a May 30 USA Today article about global warming, said warm winter temperatures had wreaked havoc on fruit production. If the trend continues, growers will need to shift to low-chill tree varieties, an expensive solution. Not only that, he added, but low-chill varieties do not exist for some trees. ...

The May 30 editions of USA Today also included comments by agricultural economics professor Phillip Martin, in an article about Mexican immigration. Martin pointed out that Mexico's birth rate has been falling over the past several decades, and this will lead to fewer immigrants in the coming years. "Demography is real," USA Today quoted Martin as saying. "There will be less migration pressure from a rapidly growing Mexican labor force in the future." …

For a May 30 article in The New York Times, anesthesiology and pain medicine professor Scott Fishman commented on complex regional pain syndrome. It results when nerves misfire after an injury. For many years, the syndrome often was diagnosed as psychosomatic. "It is still quite a mysterious condition," Fishman said. "It raises doubts in the eyes of doctors and the people that are looking for hard lab evidence or good imaging confirmation. With this condition, we simply don't have that."…

A May 29 Newsday story about catnip included comment from assistant veterinary medicine professor Leslie Lyons. Catnip, a member of the mint family, has a special appeal to felines when sniffed. "Catnip is a dominant genetic response in cats, and it's highly prevalent," Lyons said. "A majority of cats respond to catnip, and some other wild species do, too, which means it's an old gene for cats."…

The (Baltimore) Sun on May 29 quoted veterinary medicine professor Susan Stover in an article about the nation's veterinary schools' inability to handle the demand for veterinarians. Congressional legislation would provide grants to expand training programs. "Vets are critical to human health and food safety in ways that I don't think the public has the knowledge to have an appreciation for," Stover said. …

In The Sacramento Bee on June 2, assistant professor Christopher Knittel of the economics department commented on the General Motors and Ford programs that help new-car buyers with rising gasoline costs: GM caps the price at $1.99 a gallon for a year, while Ford gives gas cards worth up to $1,100. "This is an ingenious way to capitalize on consumer fears," Knittel said. "Rebates are typical for autos, but by framing it this way, as a rebate on any gas spikes, I think consumers will respond much more to that."…

A Los Angeles Times article on California voter apathy included comment from political science professor emeritus Ed Constantini. The article appeared on June 4, two days before California's ninth election in the past six years. "It seems to me at some point, there's just too much democracy," he said. "The sense I get is people saying, 'You mean to tell me we have yet another election? I'm really exhausted.' " …

United Press International and Denver Post articles on June 5 discussed the threatened Preble's meadow jumping mouse and an effort to cut funding to protect the species. Both articles cited Doug Kelt, a professor of wildlife, fish and conservation biology. A cutback in funding "would be unethical at best and possibly criminal at worst," he told the Post.