$4.2 Billion for Three Staff: California Passes Immunology Bond
November 7, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
California voters approved an $8.4 billion immunology research bond on November 3, 2026. Half the money is reserved for a single nonprofit that had just three employees as of September.
California voters passed an $8.4 billion immunology research bond on November 3, with 55.1% support, according to Ballotpedia election results. Half of that sum, $4.2 billion, is locked for a single unnamed nonprofit that counted three employees as of September, CalMatters reporting found.
The nonprofit is the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, founded and primarily funded by billionaire medical-device inventor Gary K. Michelson. Michelson also wrote Proposition 38 and contributed $63.2 million of the $71.2 million the pro-38 campaign raised, according to Daily Wire reporting. The opposition raised roughly $12,000.
The institute has hired three people so far: a chief operating officer, a general counsel, and a scientific adviser, CalMatters found. Its five-year business plan, tied to a 2024 affiliation agreement with UCLA, projected roughly 51 hires between summer 2024 and summer 2025, including six executives and five leading scientists. UCLA Health CEO John Mazziotta told UC regents in September that the institute had still not found a director, Daily Wire reported.
Capital spending has fallen just as far behind. The institute's five-year plan projected more than $200 million in personnel and construction costs by mid-2026, CalMatters reported. A senior UCLA official told regents it had spent closer to $20 million. The planned headquarters at the former Westside Pavilion shopping mall near UCLA will not be fully built until at least late 2028, and the project remains roughly $100 million short on construction funding, according to Daily Wire.
The total charge to California taxpayers will not stop at $8.4 billion. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimates the borrowing will cost approximately $12 billion with interest, requiring annual payments of roughly $500 million to $600 million over about 20 years, as both CalMatters and Ballotpedia report.
Supporters argue the bond will eventually pay for itself. Proposition 38 requires 10% of research revenues to flow back to the state until borrowing costs are repaid, and treatments developed with bond money must sell to California patients at 20% below the average national price, according to Ballotpedia. Opponents counter that recouping the full cost would require more than $120 billion in research revenue over 20 years, CalMatters reports.
"It is remarkably hard to do, and I don't see any justification for the speculation that they're going to bring in this much money to pay back the people of California," UC Davis biologist Jonathan Eisen said at an October press conference opposing the proposition, as reported by CalMatters. Dr. Robert Kaplan, a senior scholar at Stanford's Clinical Excellence Research Center, told Ballotpedia: "As written, Proposition 38 is deceptive. It will funnel billions of dollars to benefit its billionaire donor."
The measure also exempts the institute from California's public records, public meetings, and political reform laws, substituting annual reports and state audits in their place, according to Daily Wire. Dr. Susan Bookheimer, a UCLA researcher who has secured more than $100 million in federal grants from the National Institutes of Health, told an October press conference that standard major science funding programs penalize applicants who lack the necessary staff and equipment at the time of application, CalMatters reported.
Three employees, $4.2 billion, and a building that will not open until 2028 at the earliest.
Published November 7, 2026 · Frisian News