Who is Dr Jane M. Orient? Doctor Opposed to Mandatory Vaccinations to Testify Before Senate Committee

By Samantha Lock On 12/7/20 at 7:17 AM EST

Dr Jane M. Orient is executive director of the politically conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The 74-year-old Arizona native has been vocal in her criticism over coronavirus vaccines, instead opting to promote "medical freedom" and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as an alternative treatment.

Dr. Orient has so far opposed the idea to vaccinate all Americans against the coronavirus, going so far as to call mandatory vaccination "a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy and parental decisions."

"People are sick and dying now, and this will not stop the instant a vaccine is approved and deployed," Orient told Newsweek.

The Columbia University-educated physician has been branded a "conspiracy theorist" and an "anti-vaxxer" by some of her critics—labels of which she denies.

Dr. Jane M. Orient is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The Heartland Institute

More recently, her recent appointment as lead witness at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on early at-home treatment for COVID-19 on Tuesday has elicited criticism from Democrats and others in the medical field.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, of which Dr. Orient heads, strongly opposes federal interference in medical decisions, including mandated vaccines.

The group, founded in 1943 to "protect private medicine", represents just thousands of the nearly one millions physicians practicing across the US.

Government-imposed vaccination would be a "serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing," the AAPS believes, according to a Senate statement on federal vaccine mandates.

"AAPS believes that liberty rights are unalienable," the statement continues. "Patients and parents have the right to refuse vaccination, although potentially contagious persons can be restricted in their movements as needed to protect others against a clear and present danger. Unvaccinated persons with no exposure to a disease and no evidence of a disease are not a clear or present danger."

In the same statement, Dr. Orient noted that the risk to public health threat is the underlying rationale for government policy on mandatory vaccines. "But how much of a threat is required to justify forcing people to accept government-imposed risks?" she asked.

"It seems to me reckless to be pushing people to take risks when you don't know what the risks are," Dr. Orient more recently told the New York Times, adding: "People's rights should be respected. Where is 'my body, my choice' when it comes to this?"

The doctor noted that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine use a new scientific method and should be treated with more caution.

"If governmental authorities, imbued with a sense of infallibility, impose their will on everyone, the consequences of a bad choice affect millions," the doctor wrote in an article published in March of last year.

"Trading freedom—and free speech—for supposed security ultimately leads to a loss of both. And if government can dictate what you must inject into your own children, what limits can be placed on its power?"

"Deploying vaccine police and shutting down debate will erode trust in health authorities and physicians, although more people may get their shots," an article published in May reads. "But such heavy-handed measures will not defeat the enemy—measles and worse diseases."

Many Republican leaders agree.

"Americans should have the freedom to take the COVID vaccine," Representative Jeff Duncan of South Carolina Duncan tweeted on Saturday. "Americans should also have the freedom to decline the vaccine."