Trump is killing the science that powers our future — California must act to save itself 

On Jan. 24, the Atlas Tool disappeared — an interactive dataset on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website that tracks 20 years of data on a range of infectious diseases. Scientists monitoring infection patterns in hepatitis, HIV and others were suddenly flying blind.  

And they were not alone: The CDC’s entire dataset went missing for several days, along with large chunks of the National Institutes of Health site. Data tracking mpox activity, vaccine recommendations and women’s health all went dark. Over the next several weeks, incomplete pieces of various datasets began to re-emerge. Many had been altered, although it was not clear how or by whom.

When asked by journalists about the disappearing data, the CDC issued a statement saying that the actions were taken to comply with executive orders issued by President Trump.  

For scientists like myself, whose work depends on both data and funding from the federal government, this was unprecedented. The lights went out on our ability to monitor and protect public health.

Paired with the data purge was a “funding freeze” that halted huge swaths of critical research. Forward-looking studies on treatment for cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism and more were defunded. Thousands of scientists, researchers and public health professionals were either laid off or barred from working, forced to sit by while experiments fell apart. 

The Trump administration is, in turn, both abandoning and politicizing our public health. It’s clear that we can no longer rely on the executive branch to keep even basic guardrails in place. California’s elected officials need to think seriously about protecting the health of the 40 million children and adults they serve.   

They will have their first opportunity this month, when a proposed law to create the California Institute for Scientific Research will come before our state legislature. The purpose of this legislation is three-fold: to guarantee surveillance of disease spread; to procure or manufacture our own vaccine stock, so that Californians are protected from deadly epidemics like the measles outbreak in Texas; and to keep crucial public health funding alive for California universities and research companies. 

The Institute would be housed within the Government Operations Agency and funded through California’s state appropriations process. It would facilitate scientific research in California by making grants or loans to public or private universities, research companies, institutes and organizations for scientific research in areas like biomedicine, climate science, disease prevention, the safety and efficacy of food, drugs and more. 

As the president dismantles our federal scientific and vaccine infrastructure, the Institute would ensure California meets the moment. It would allow us to take our future into our own hands so we can protect ourselves and keep the wheels of innovation turning. It would keep crucial datasets free of “alternative facts” and stop the guiding light of scientific progress from going dark. For markets, investors and researchers, it would provide a stable and predictable environment to work in — an alternative to the chaos coming out of Washington.  

How this would be paid for is a fair question, especially with the federal government pulling back and even punishing California’s vital research efforts. Answering it requires considering both our place in the world and what is at stake.  

California is the world’s fourth largest economy. We are a research powerhouse and a donor state, sending $83 billion more to federal coffers each year than we recoup. In 2024, nearly half of all venture capital in the United States was invested in California.  

Meeting the moment may indeed have a cost, but failing has costs as well. The federal research apparatus directly supports over 55,000 jobs in our state. By many estimates, every dollar invested in research returns more than $2.50 in new product revenue, local business activity and more — an ROI that any responsible investor would act on.  

Our economy is also boosted significantly by research-generated innovation. We lead in patent creation, by a lot. Talented researchers at the University of California alone generate new patents every day.

Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, whose gene-editing work via CRISPR has been lauded as the most important scientific advancement in decades, works in biomedical sciences at the University of California-Berkeley, and her work is federally funded. The National Science Foundation underwrote the research of Stanford graduates Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose algorithm became Google. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency bankrolled research that led to the development of the internet, smart phones and applications like Alexa and Siri. These investments have improved our lives, and our tax base.  

The executive branch of our federal government has shown itself to be an irresponsible partner when it comes to our physical and economic health. We simply cannot rely on it for the basic, crucial services we need to grow and thrive.

Trump and his Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., may not understand the fundamental importance of vaccines or of basic research and the lifeline it offers families living with debilitating diseases, but Californians do. It’s up to us to seize the moment, and build a responsible, forward-thinking government that benefits us all. 

Julia Falo, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar in molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and recording secretary of UAW 4811, the union for more than 48,000 workers at the University of California.