Los Angeles Times
· collected 2026-10-11 · by Mark Z. Barabak
Backlash to Trump, RFK Jr. may boost their political ranks
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uncertain
Backlash → boost → ranks
- Anti-vax policies and erosion of the nation’s public health system have spurred hundreds of doctors and scientists to seek office.
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policies → spur → office
As a California state lawmaker, Richard Pan authored some of the strongest vaccine laws in the country.
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Pan → author → country
His reward — and part of the backlash, on top of death threats — was being physically assaulted outside the Capitol in Sacramento and spattered with blood thrown from the gallery.
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reward → assault → gallery
Now, a few years removed from the state Senate and teaching health policy at UC Davis, Pan is running for Congress, in part to fight an old nemesis, the terminally misguided Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and to arrest the Trump administration’s sledgehammering of the nation’s public healthcare system.
“We need people in Congress who have the background, the training, the knowledge to basically hold this administration accountable,” Pan said last week on a baking 100-degree day in the Sacramento suburbs.
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Pan → remove → suburbs
“I know what it’s like to be on the front lines,” said Pan, who spent a dozen years teaching and practicing pediatrics before being elected to the Assembly in 2010.
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who → know → 2010
“I’ve seen measles, right?”
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I → see → measles
In fact, his push to toughen vaccination requirements was spurred by a 2014-15 measles outbreak at Disneyland, which, at the time, was one of the largest and most significant epidemics to arise after the disease was supposedly eliminated from the U.S. in 2000.
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disease → toughen → 2000
Little did we know.
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we → know → ?
Two of the country’s top political prognosticators see Democrats likely seizing the House and possibly the Senate.
uncertain
Democrats → see → House
The guardrails Republicans were counting on to stem their losses don’t seem to be holding.
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Republicans → count → losses
Every action has an equal and opposition reaction, a law of physics that’s equally applicable to the realm of politics.
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that → have → politics
Pan is part of a wave of doctors and scientists running for office this November — for school boards, city councils, state legislatures, the House and U.S. Senate — owing in good part to Kennedy’s quackery and the hollowing out of such vital health and research agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
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Pan → run → Health
The political organization 3.14 Action — its name a decimal approximation of pi — has recruited and helped elect hundreds of candidates from STEM backgrounds (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and endorsed more than 500 of those running this year, including Pan in his race in Sacramento and in neighboring Placer and Yolo counties.
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name → recruit → counties
Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist who worked on drug discovery and breast cancer research, founded 3.14 Action in 2016 after two unsuccessful tries for a congressional seat in the Philadelphia suburbs.
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who → work → suburbs
When she started the organization, Naughton noted, there were more talk radio hosts on Capitol Hill than scientists and engineers.
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Naughton → start → scientists
(Nearly two dozen doctors and nurses currently serve in Congress.
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doctors → serve → Congress
More than 30 have run this election cycle.)
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30 → run → cycle
“There isn’t an issue that doesn’t benefit by having fact-based decision-makers, people that will go into office as problem-solvers,” Naughton said from Pennsylvania, which is in the throes of the nation’s worst measles outbreak in more than three decades.
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which → be → decades
Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has downplayed the severity, even as the incidence of other vaccine-preventable diseases is rising.
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incidence → downplay → diseases
“That’s essentially what scientists and physicians are,” Naughton said.
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Naughton → ’ → ?
and clearly our country is facing a lot of problems.”
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country → face → problems
Among those she cited was “the arsonist in charge of HHS.”
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arsonist → cite → HHS
Pan has a history with Kennedy, who has long reigned as one of the country’s preeminent anti-vaxxers.
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who → have → vaxxers
In 2015, he helped summon hundreds of demonstrators to Sacramento to protest Pan’s legislation tightening vaccination requirements.
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he → summon → requirements
(Kennedy later apologized for using the word “holocaust” to condemn the proposed law, though he revisited the Nazi analogy during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
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he → apologize → pandemic
In 2019, Kennedy returned to Sacramento to oppose another bill Pan authored, this one tightening the rules for vaccination exemptions.
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Pan → return → exemptions
Again, he was joined by an army of protesters.
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he → join → protesters
Tensions peaked when a demonstrator threw a cup of blood from the spectators’ gallery onto the Senate floor, halting business for several hours before the bill passed.
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bill → peak → hours
Pan’s opponent in November is Rep. Kevin Kiley, a conservative Republican running as an independent.
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opponent → run → independent
Seeking election in a Democratic-tilting district drawn under Proposition 50, the voter-passed gerrymander, Kiley has sought to distance himself from Trump and the MAGA movement, saying he would not caucus with GOP lawmakers if he returned to Washington.
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he → seek → Washington
Like his jury-rigged political persona, Kiley seems to want it both ways on vaccines.
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Kiley → rig → vaccines
Before going to Congress, while serving in the Assembly, Kiley voted against Pan’s legislation cracking down on fraudulent vaccine exemptions.
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Kiley → go → exemptions
He’s described vaccines as a vital public health tool, but condemned government mandates and suggested vaccination should be a matter of parental choice.
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vaccination → describe → choice
He claims Pan has eroded public trust by politicizing the issue.
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Pan → claim → issue
As for Kennedy, Kiley told the San Francisco Chronicle a lot of things “that I don’t agree with,” though he’s never called out the secretary for his cuckoo-land theories — vaccines cause autism, the fluoride in public water supplies is making Americans “stupider,” and many more — or denounced his destructive policies.
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Americans → tell → policies
That passivity, Pan said, amounts to complicity.
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Pan → say → complicity
“It’s not just simply a talking point,” Pan said of public health policy.
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Pan → ’ → policy
“It’s reality and we need to have policy based on what’s really happening, not on some ideological conspiracy theory.”
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what → ’ → theory
Pan’s campaign is focused on more than vaccines and RFK Jr.
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campaign → focus → vaccines
…and 26 more, not listed.
The Aporia
