California voters approve $8.4 billion for immunology research

Voters in California have approved US$8.4 billion in funding for immunology research, the largest ever infusion of cash for science authorized by a public vote in US history, according to Nature.

The funding proposal, known as Proposition 38, appeared on the ballot for voters in California in last week’s US mid-term elections. It took nearly a week for officials to count enough ballots to declare its success.

The state government will pay for the research by selling state government bonds. The research aims to find treatments that harness or re-engineer the body’s immune system to fight illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Bonds are typically reserved to pay for infrastructure projects such as road construction and require the state to pay back its debt with interest.

Support and criticism

Supporters say the funding will provide stability for researchers in California, who have been affected by political turmoil. The administration of US President Donald Trump has pushed for massive cuts to science funding, put political appointees in charge of grant decisions at federal science agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health, and forced policy change at US universities that receive federal funding, including those in California.

The $8.4 billion “is an advantage to California that is unprecedented”, says Antoni Ribas, a cancer researcher and physician at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who supported Proposition 38. It will make the state “even more of a global hub for immunology research”.

But the proposal has sparked debate because it calls for giving about half of the funding directly to research institutes. The only institute that matches the criteria called for in the proposal is one co-founded by Gary Michelson, a billionaire medical-device inventor. He wrote the proposition and donated about $45 million of his own funds to get it placed on the ballot and to campaign for its passage.

“I feel like the voters have been taken advantage of,” says Sarah Hill, a political scientist at California State University, Fullerton, who tracks the state’s ballot measures. Michelson did not respond to Nature’s request for comment before this story was published, but has said elsewhere that he will not personally profit from the bond revenue.

How the money will be used

Around $4 billion from Proposition 38 will fund grants for researchers at select public universities and non-profit institutes in California through a competitive review process. According to the proposal, any commercialized therapies developed through funded research must be sold at a 20% discount to people in California, with 10% of drug royalties returning to the state’s general fund.

California has funded scientific research through this ballot process before. In 2004, voters approved a $3-billion bond to establish the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which they then voted to replenish with another $5.5 billion in 2020.

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Sources

• nature.com: California votes to give record $8.4 billion to medical research | Nature

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