Anti-vaccine scientist has been invited to testify before senate committee

Dr Jane Orient is executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group that views federal vaccine mandates as a violation of human rights.

A doctor who is skeptical of coronavirus vaccines will be the lead witness at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, prompting criticism from Democrats who say Republicans should not give a platform to someone who spreads conspiracy theories.

Dr Jane Orient is executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group that opposes government involvement in medicine and views federal vaccine mandates as a violation of human rights.

“A public health threat is the rationale for the policy on mandatory vaccines. But how much of a threat is required to justify forcing people to accept government-imposed risks?” Orient wrote in a statement to the Senate last year, calling vaccine mandates “a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy and parental decisions.”

In a phone interview Sunday, Orient, an internist who received her medical degree from Columbia University in New York, resisted being cast as an “anti-vaxxer” and said she would not get a coronavirus vaccine because she had an autoimmune condition. She added that she opposed the government’s push for all Americans to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, noting that both vaccine candidates — one made by Pfizer and the other by Moderna — use a new scientific method.

“It seems to me reckless to be pushing people to take risks when you don’t know what the risks are,” Orient said. “People’s rights should be respected. Where is ‘my body, my choice’ when it comes to this?”

Her selection as a witness as federal health officials are trying to promote a vaccine as a way to end a pandemic that has killed more than 281,000 Americans prompted harsh criticism from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and the Senate minority leader.

“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,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday.

A spokesperson for the chair of the Senate committee, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., did not immediately return an email message asking why Orient had been invited to testify.