{"id":3302,"date":"2026-06-29T11:07:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3302"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:07:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:07:06","slug":"california-wants-to-rescue-medical-research-voters-must-decide-if-its-worth-8-4-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=3302","title":{"rendered":"California wants to rescue medical research. Voters must decide if it\u2019s worth $8.4 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After 12 years of battling stage four blood cancer, Laurie Adami was out of options.<\/p>\n

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She had been diagnosed in 2006 \u2014 at age 46 \u2014 with late-stage follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which has long been deemed incurable.<\/p>\n

By 2018, doctors estimated she had over 8 pounds of cancerous tumors in her body and less than a month to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if it weren\u2019t my own story, I might not believe it because it just seems so unreal,\u201d said Adami, looking back now.<\/p>\n

Adami\u2019s seventh and final treatment strategy was Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy, commonly referred to as CAR-T. A form of cancer immunotherapy \u2014 which harnesses the body\u2019s own immune system to recognize and stop disease \u2014 CAR-T genetically reprograms a patient\u2019s white blood cells, to hunt and destroy cancer cells.<\/p>\n

Within 30 days of receiving\u00a0CAR-T, Adami was cancer-free.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat shows the power of this new treatment, which is like nothing else has ever been,\u201d Adami said. \u201cAnd if I hadn\u2019t done CAR-T when I got it, I would\u2019ve been dead within a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adami had known of the life-saving impact CAR-T could have for struggling late-stage cancer patients like herself since 2012, but she was forced to wait six years to undergo the treatment because of delays in research and no clinical trials for her type of cancer, she said.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s why Adami supports California\u2019s proposed $8.4 billion medical research bond, which would provide stable state funding for science. If approved by voters in November\u2019s election, the California Immunology Research and Cures Initiative would fund research for immunotherapies, like CAR-T, to treat and prevent diseases like cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s, heart disease and other serious illnesses.<\/p>\n

Critics say the measure would commit the state to decades of debt for a narrow slice of science funding at a time when sweeping funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health \u2014 the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world \u2014 are hitting universities and labs and threaten the future of healthcare.<\/p>\n

Over the course of last year, the Trump administration froze or cut at least $2.3 billion in previously approved and unspent NIH grants \u2014 canceling hundreds of research grants on topics including LGBTQ+ and minority healthcare, HIV treatment, COVID-19, global immunizations and child vaccinations.<\/p>\n

The measure carries particular stakes in the Bay Area, where universities and medical centers have lost more than $55 million in canceled federal grants and where researchers say cuts are already disrupting clinical trials, staffing and long-term research.<\/p>\n

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Last year, the University of California estimated it had lost over $37 million, while California State University said it had lost at least $7 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral of our patients had to stop their treatment in a clinical trial because the funding was gone,\u201d said Adam Zarrin, the director of state government affairs at Blood Cancer United, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting blood cancer. \u201cThe same is happening for the researchers: \u2018We\u2019re in the middle of a trial, we\u2019re in the middle of doing our work and now the federal government has taken action and we no longer have access to the resources that we need to continue this research.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Adami, now a patient advocate who works to help others navigate their cancer diagnosis and care, said the funding cuts have had real impacts on the people and researchers she works with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a family I knew who had a young child with leukemia who had failed everything and was in a clinical trial that got shut down because of the NIH cuts last year, and the child died,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Supporters say California\u2019s proposed bond would offset federal cuts and split the $8.4 billion to fund an immunology and immunotherapy research institute affiliated with the University of California and to fund a grant program for California-based public or nonprofit universities and medical research institutions.<\/p>\n

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The University of California declined to comment on the bond measure. UC has been a strong advocate for a separate $23 billion bond measure proposed by Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, that would create a state-level, taxpayer-funded institute similar to the NIH for university research. That bond failed to make the November ballot earlier this week.<\/p>\n

The proposed immunology bond would not award any funds to for-profit organizations or pharmaceutical companies, and half of the $8.4 billion would go toward research on cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

The bond would also mandate that 10% of all funds from the licensing of treatments would be returned to California to offset the total cost of the bond. It would cap state administrative costs at 2%, and any treatments developed under the measure would be required to be offered to Californians at least 20% below the national average price.<\/p>\n

The research funding bond is backed by dozens of disease advocacy groups, including Blood Cancer United, the ALS Association, the Alzheimer\u2019s Association and the Parkinson Association of Northern California. It is primarily financially backed and promoted by billionaire philanthropist and medical inventor Dr. Gary K. Michelson, who pledged $120 million in 2024 to launch the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a UCLA-affiliated research center expected to open in 2027.<\/p>\n

Opposition to the measure has mainly centered on the structure of the funding, which would cost the state an estimated $500 million each year over a 25-year period to repay the bond, according to the state\u2019s Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office. Opponents have also criticized the measure\u2019s limited scope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis approach risks turning research funding into a series of competing campaigns, leaving less visible but equally important conditions behind,\u201d Robert M. Kaplan, an adjunct professor at the Stanford School of Medicine Clinical Excellence Research Center, wrote in an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee opposing the measure.<\/p>\n

Wiener also criticized the measure for being too narrow, previously telling POLITICO that it should have been folded into his $23 billion scientific research bond.<\/p>\n

But supporters say the alternative funding source is crucial for California research impacted by federal cuts.<\/p>\n

Shane Crotty, the chief science officer at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said he\u2019s seen researchers leave the country, and the field altogether, due to the slashed funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like you\u2019ve got a team of people rolling a boulder up a hill. So if you have a pause in the resources, some of those people are leaving, the boulder definitely starts going back down the hill and you\u2019re just trying to hang in there until you can find that support again,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s what it feels like for a lot of people doing medical research right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crotty said if passed, the measure would make a big difference for the health of Californians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of investment in immune system medical research could really mean better health and better therapies for patients and can do so pretty quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cThe federal situation has created a bottleneck for advances that are on the cusp from really moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adami said the bond would also fund therapies that have the power to save the lives of people who are facing life-threatening diseases, as she once did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis $8.4 billion is going to give us this huge leg up and get research kick-started where it should be and across all of our California research institutions and medical research facilities,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd why shouldn\u2019t California lead immunotherapy research?\u201d<\/p>\n

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The bond money would be split to fund an immunology and immunotherapy research institute affiliated with the University of California and to fund a grant program for California-based public or nonprofit universities and medical research institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCalifornia wants to rescue medical research. 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