As smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted across North America, and western U.S. states girded for their annual fire siege, Neeta Thakur, MD, was well into her search for ways to offset the damage of such fumes on people's health, especially among minority and low-income communities.

For more than a decade, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) researcher relied on federal grants without incident. But Thakur, a doctor and a scientist, suddenly found herself leading the charge for public health science against President Donald Trump's political ideology.

Thakur, 45, a pulmonologist who also is medical director of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Chest Clinic, is the lead plaintiff among six UC researchers who in June won a class-action preliminary injunction agai

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