The doctor heading a controversial physician’s advocacy group opposing government involvement in medicine has been announced as a leading witness at a US Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing on Tuesday.
Jane Orient has rejected any “anti-vaxxer” label but her criticism of coronavirus vaccines has drawn scathing rebukes from some senior politicians infuriated by her invitation to testify to Congress.
“At such a crucial time, giving a platform to conspiracy theorists to spread myths and falsehoods about Covid vaccines is downright dangerous and one of the last things Senate Republicans should be doing right now,” the Senate minority leader and New York Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement released on Sunday.
Critics have cited Orient’s promotion of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment as well as her organization’s view that federal vaccine mandates are a violation of human rights.
In a statement provided to the Senate last year, Orient called vaccine mandates “a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy and parental decisions”.
“The regulation of medical practice is a state function, not a federal one,” she wrote. “Governmental pre-emption of patients’ or parents’ decisions about accepting drugs or other medical interventions is a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing.”
Orient is one of four medical professionals set to testify in the hearing in which federal health officials will weigh vaccine mandates and other initiatives to combat a worsening coronavirus pandemic that, so far, has killed more than 282,000 Americans.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a fringe group of fewer than 5,000 doctors that offers advice experts say isn’t “consistent with evidence-based medicine”. It had even been cited by Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale when explaining why the president had taken hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure.
At that time, Orient told the Guardian she believed the drug “should be prescribed more often”, and in a statement claimed the drug offered “about 90% chance of helping Covid-19 patients”.
That claim was based on a flawed database.
As infections surge towards 15m confirmed cases, Orient has opposed government plans for all Americans to be vaccinated, noting that those emerging vaccines currently awaiting approval by US regulators, one made by the Pfizer and BioNTech partnership and the other by Moderna – use a new scientific method.
There is currently no plan for a federal mandate that Americans be inoculated against Covid-19.
In a phone interview on Sunday with the New York Times, she called it “reckless to be pushing people to take risks”.
“People’s rights should be respected. Where is ‘my body, my choice’ when it comes to this?” Orient said, adding she would not get a coronavirus vaccine, telling the Times that she has an autoimmune condition.
Republicans have presented mixed messages on support for government vaccine mandates, with many expressing concerns about the legality of businesses requiring them and infringements on individual liberties.
Meanwhile, even as some Republicans questioned the CDC on the safety of the vaccine, Ivanka Trump – White House adviser and daughter of the president – as well as former Republican president George Bush have both confirmed they would publicly take the vaccine.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
