San Diegan & Air Force Vet. Living with ALS Backs Proposition 38 for Medical Research to Support Life-Saving Treatments

#Yeson38 #prop38 #yesonprop38 #cureMS #cureLupus

SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES, October 5, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a guest opinion published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jessy Ybarra, a San Diego-area U.S. Air Force veteran living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), shares why he supports YES on Proposition 38 and has hope that continued investment in medical research will lead to new treatments and breakthroughs for patients living with ALS and other serious diseases.

Ybarra was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2017 after serving four years in the United States Air Force and spending 32 years working in information technology. Nearly a decade after his diagnosis, he continues to advocate for medical research funding while living with a progressive disease that can take away a person’s ability to walk, talk, eat, use their hands and eventually breathe. One milestone in particular continues to drive him: living long enough to see his son graduate from college.

In his guest opinion piece, “We need Prop. 38 to fund urgently needed medical research,” Ybarra describes the urgency ALS patients experience while waiting for new treatments, the importance of sustained medical research funding and his support for Prop 38, the Immunology Medical Research & Cures Initiative.

“ALS changes the way you think about time. You stop assuming you have years and start measuring life in milestones,” said Jessy Ybarra. “Life-saving breakthroughs will come. For patients like me, the question is whether they will come soon enough. Prop 38 gives California a stable source of funding to keep that research moving at a pace our lives literally depend on.”

Prop 38 will provide $8.4 billion to accelerate immunology research to help cure and prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and other persistent diseases. Immunotherapies harness the body’s own immune system to prevent and treat diseases, and they are already successfully treating patients with melanoma, lung cancer, leukemia and lymphoma. Prop 38 will fund the next generation of this research for other devastating diseases, like Parkinson’s, diabetes, ALS, muscular dystrophy, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis.

The timing is urgent. Cuts to federal research funding are shutting down clinical trials and delaying discoveries at the exact moment immunology science has gained momentum. At least 160 active clinical trials nationwide have been affected by the termination of National Institutes of Health grants in 2025. In California, universities began curtailing biomedical research and delaying hiring as federal grants were terminated or withheld.

Prop 38 represents a new approach to medical research funding, creating a collaborative statewide network that combines competitive research grants with an immunology institute designed to help turn discoveries into life-saving treatments and cures. Half of the funding will support competitive grants at California universities and nonprofit research institutions, while the other half will support a nonprofit immunology institute affiliated with the University of California that can bring together leading scientists, technology, laboratories, patients and clinical trials.

Prop 38 is designed to pay for itself. Ten percent of all proceeds from the licensing of immunotherapies developed under Prop 38 must be returned to California to offset the measure’s total costs, including interest. Additionally, any cure or immunotherapy developed will be provided to California patients at a 20 percent discount below the national average. Prop 38 also includes strict accountability requirements, including:
– Two percent cap on state administrative expenses
– Public disclosure of spending
– Independent financial audits
– For-profit corporations are not eligible for grant funding

Learn more at YESon38.com, including a coalition list and what supporters are saying.

Robin Swanson
YES on Prop 38
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