Leemon McHenry is a bioethicist and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge, Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and research consultant for the law firm of Wisner Baum, Los Angeles, California.  

He has taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, Old Dominion University, Davidson College, Central Michigan University, Wittenberg University and Loyola Marymount University, and has held visiting research positions at Johns Hopkins University, UCLA and at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in the University of Edinburgh. His research interests center on medical ethics and philosophy of science.

In medical ethics he has focused attention on scientific integrity in clinical research. He has criticized the corporate takeover of medicine and the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medicine. This includes dubious claims about chemical imbalance as a marketing ploy for selling antidepressants, direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals, industry-sponsored clinical research, and ghostwriting for medical journals.  In a broader realm, he has argued that the industry-academic partnerships have worsened university research, created increased opportunities for scientific misconduct, and failed to protect academic freedom. This work falls within a new area of inquiry, agnotology, understood as the study of willful acts to spread confusion and deceit.

His new book with co-author, Dr. Jon Jureidini, is The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine.

He has been a research consultant for the law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, Los Angeles, California since 2003 and has  been involved in the following litigation – Paxil Withdrawal Mass Tort, Paxil  and Zoloft Suicides, Paxil Pediatric Efficacy, Celexa and Lexapro Paediatric Efficacy, Paxil Birth Defects, Avandia Personal Injury and Consumer Fraud, Medtronic Infuse Personal Injury and Consumer Fraud, Glyphosate (Roundup) Personal Injury, Achtar Anti-Trust, and Gardasil Personal Injury.