Aaron Kheriaty

Aaron Kheriaty, MD, is a physician specializing in psychiatry and author of three books, including most recently, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (2022). He is a Fellow & Director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

​Dr. Kheriaty is a plaintiff in the landmark free speech case Missouri v. Biden challenging government censorship on social media. For his work on this issue, journalist Matt Taibbi has called him “the most ambitious theorist of the censorship-industrial age.” Dr. Kheriaty also serves in teaching and advisory roles at the Brownstone Institute, the Zephyr Institute, the Paul Ramsey Institute, and the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.

​Dr. Kheriaty graduated from the University of Notre Dame in philosophy and pre-medical sciences, earned his MD degree from Georgetown University, and completed residency training in psychiatry at the University of California Irvine. For many years he was Professor of Psychiatry at UCI School of Medicine and Director of the Medical Ethics Program at UCI Health, where he chaired the ethics committee. He also chaired the ethics committee at the California Department of State Hospitals for several years. He was fired from the University of California after challenging the University’s covid vaccine mandate in federal court.

​Dr. Kheriaty has authored books and articles for professional and lay audiences on bioethics, public health, civil liberties, political theory, social science, psychiatry, philosophy, religion, and culture. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, The Federalist, Compact, The New Atlantis, Public Discourse, City Journal, and First Things. He has conducted print, radio, and television interviews on bioethics topics with The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NPR, EWTN, and Epoch TV. 

​On matters of public policy and healthcare he has addressed the California Medical Association and has testified before the California Senate Health Committee and the United States Senate. Dr. Kheriaty has consulted on Covid related ethical issues during the pandemic for the University of California Office of the President, the County of Orange Healthcare Agency, and the California Department of Public Health.

Episode Appearances