My journey from neurologist to patient with ALS and why I’m supporting ‘yes’ on Prop 38

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OPINION — In my career as a neurologist, I delivered life-altering diagnoses every day. Unfortunately for many of the conditions I am trained to recognize, such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia and even ALS, there are few or no treatments to halt or reverse the progression of decline.

Then in 2023, I started losing strength in my right hand. Then my left. Then my voice began to change. With horror, I knew what was happening before any test or specialist confirmed it. It was now my turn to face the reality of living with an incurable disease: ALS, a disease of the nerves that control the muscles that allow us to move, talk, swallow and breathe. 

ALS causes paralysis that spreads quickly through the body. I no longer walk, use my arms, speak or swallow. I’m writing this on a tablet that tracks my eyes as I type on an on-screen keyboard. Despite my whole world being turned upside down, I will never change my commitment to advocating for research funding.

Both sides of my story are what brought me to support Proposition 38, the Immunology Medical Research & Cures Initiative. Prop 38 is urgently needed to accelerate research into life-saving treatment and cures.

Immunology is the study of the body’s own immune system. Immunotherapies are treatments that use that system to find and destroy diseases, and this strategy is proving to be highly effective. People with cancers like melanoma, lung cancer and certain leukemias, once given weeks to live, are now in long-term remission because their own immune systems were harnessed to fight back. There is great potential for effective treatments beyond cancer, including neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia and ALS. But this work needs reliable funding.

Prop 38 invests $8.4 billion in immunology at California’s nonprofit universities and research institutions, including institutions like UC Davis Health. Half of the funding would support a single world-class immunology research institute affiliated with a University of California (UC) campus with access to leading scientists, technology, laboratory equipment, patients and clinical trials necessary to scale and quickly turn research into life-saving cures. The California Department of Public Health will determine the eligible institute based on criteria to ensure a highly qualified research institute is selected.

The other $4.2 billion is available to dozens of California’s leading nonprofit universities and research institutes through a competitive grant process overseen by an Advisory Council of leading scientists, doctors and researchers in the field of immunology.

Prop 38 requires collaboration among grantees so that discoveries, expertise and best practices are shared across institutions. It is also designed to create something California has never had before: a permanent, collaborative research ecosystem that combines broad competitive funding with a world-class institution capable of accelerating discoveries into lifesaving treatments for patients.

The measure includes real accountability: State administrative fees are capped at 2%. Every grant has conflict-of-interest rules, public disclosure and independent audits, so every dollar goes to California researchers doing the work. No money can be sent to for-profit companies.

And Prop 38 is designed to pay for itself — 10% of any licensing revenue from therapies created by the research will go back to the state to help repay the bond, to better assure the costs do not get passed onto taxpayers.

Federal funding cuts have disrupted life-saving research. People living with ALS and other incurable diseases don’t have the luxury of waiting. California needs to commit to this work now, at a scale that matches its urgency.

From my perspective on both sides of the exam room, my answer is the same: Vote yes on Prop 38.

Christopher Campos, D.O., neurologist and assistant professor at UC Davis Health in Sacramento. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2025.