In the video above, I interview Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, author of “The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State.” Kheriaty is a medical doctor and psychiatrist and worked as a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of California Irvine for 15 years before getting fired for his objections to mandatory COVID shots.
He also directs the Bioethics and American Democracy Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is a senior scholar and fellow of the Brownstone Institute.
“As ethics program director and ethics community chair, I was involved in basically all of the pandemic policy drafting, right up until the vaccine mandate,” Kheriaty says.
“Our committee at the Office of the President had done the ventilator triage policy, the vaccine allocation policy. But when it came to the vaccine mandate, it came down from on high and there was no discussion debate. Our committee was not involved in drafting the policy.
I was very concerned about the lack of open discussion and debate. Because of all the sensitive policies that we had developed during the pandemic, this one I thought was going to be the most ethically controversial, problematic and the most publicly fraught.
So, I was puzzled by the fact that we didn’t really have a conversation about it. I published a piece in The Wall Street Journal last year, arguing that vaccine mandates are unethical based on the principle of informed consent, which I teach to all the medical students every year.
This is the principle that an adult of sound mind has the right to decide: what medications or interventions to accept or decline, and they have the right to make this decision on behalf of their children who are not yet old enough to give consent.
I was very concerned that vaccine mandates were just tossing this principle overboard under the guise of, ‘We’re in emergency and so the regular rules don’t apply.’ I think it’s precisely in wartime and crises that it’s all the more important to stand fast and hold onto our ethical principles, because those are the times where we’re most tempted to abandon them. And when you do that, you can often invite disaster.”
Doctors Were Bullied Into Not Writing Medical Exemptions
Despite a number of efforts, the university refused to engage in a debate, and instead put the mandatory COVID jab policy in place. As students started to be steamrolled, many reached out to him for help. They’d day things like, “I’m not a religious person, and so, in good conscience, I don’t want to submit a dishonest religious exemption, but I have other moral or ethical concerns about this vaccine.”
Others were unable to get an appropriate medical exemption. The reason they couldn’t get one was because the California Medical Board sent a letter threatening to revoke the medical license of any physician who wrote “inappropriate exemptions.” They, of course, never defined what was appropriate or inappropriate, but it had the intended effect. Doctors were incredibly hesitant to write medical exemptions at all, for fear of the repercussions.
“I remember one patient of mine, a young man who went to his rheumatologist and this doctor told him, ‘Given your autoimmune condition, given what I’ve seen of the vaccine data so far, I recommend that you don’t get the vaccine because I think you’re young and otherwise healthy. You’re not at high risk of COVID, but the vaccine could exacerbate your autoimmune condition.’
The patient then turned to him and said, ‘OK, can you write me a medical exemption because there’s a mandate at my place of employment?’ The same doctor that just recommended against the vaccine said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that because I might lose my medical license.’ So this was the, in my view, intolerable situation that we found ourselves in 2021.
I just couldn’t imagine trying to teach the principle of informed consent, which I do in the second lecture, or talking with them about integrity and moral courage, standing up and doing the right thing even though you’re at the bottom of the hospital hierarchy as a medical student.
I couldn’t imagine having those conversations if I had seen something being rolled out that I knew was wrong, that I knew was harming people. I could see my colleagues, nurses and other very good professionals in the hospital getting fired, having their jobs threatened by this [mandate]. If I hadn’t stood up and done something, I just don’t think I would have woken up with a clear conscience.”
Kheriaty Fired After Legal Challenge
Kheriaty ended up filing a lawsuit in federal court, challenging the vaccine mandate. He argued on behalf of people with natural immunity because, strategically, he thought that was an argument that stood on solid ground legally. The university responded by first placing him on investigatory leave, followed by unpaid suspension. Two months after the lawsuit was filed, they fired him. Kheriaty ended up opening a private practice, and so far has fared well.
Preserving the Freedom of Speech for Physicians
One of the legal cases Kheriaty has gotten involved with is trying to block a new California law from taking effect. September 30, 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 2098, which was set to take effect January 1, 2023.
AB 2098 prohibits doctors from providing COVID-19 treatment or advice to a patient when that treatment or advice includes false information, and/or contradicts “contemporary scientific consensus,” and/or is “contrary to the standard of care.”
A doctor found to violate this law is guilty of “unprofessional conduct” and can face disciplinary action, including having his or her medical license revoked. As noted by Kheriaty:
WOW, lots to process! We do get, corrected wrongs are being done and continued by many, but we need more folks to wake up now!! Great Article!!!
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