A COVID Misinformer Struggles To Move On

As the COVID pandemic wound down, Jane Orient, head of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- and a WorldNetDaily fake-news favorite -- had to scout around for other things to peddle in order to stay relevant.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 10/25/2023

Dr. Jane Orient

Like her fellow WND COVID misinformer Joel Hirschhorn, Orient sought to deviate from her purported medical knowledge to opine about politics in her Oct. 24 column:

For decades, we have been moving toward government by technocracy, with major policy made by "expert" bureaucrats in agencies, supposedly above and immune to dirty politics. They can base their benevolent rules on The Science™ and not worry about public opinion.

If you like that idea, you probably do not understand how the administrative state ("Deep State") works. It may be above the melee of electoral politics, but it is deeply immersed in and the captive of intra-agency politics. That is increasingly determined by giant international corporations and global nongovernmental "nonprofit" (tax-exempt) organizations (NGOs) funded by Bill Gates, George Soros and nameless other mega-billionaires. And you can't throw them out.

We need Congress to take back its power from these agencies, and for the courts to stop allowing this unconstitutional delegation of power to the administrative state. We must exert the only leverage we have on Congress: Voting the rascals out.

She then went on to sound like a boilerplate right-wing ranter, complaining that "The current regime is the party of masking; lockdowns; coerced vaccinations no matter the necessity, efficacy, or risk; and suppression of physicians' ability to prescribe or even discuss government-disfavored treatments."

That column was unironically followed by a Dec. 6 column hypocritically complaining about the politicization of medicine, even though she's one of the people who helped politicize it by attacking anyone who criticized her anti-vaxxer rantings and who advocated commonsense measures to slow the spread of COVID as a big-government liberal:

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its mandates, was a rude awakening for many conservatives. In a free society, it is essential that experts and institutions be neutral. For example, medicine should be a neutral tool, the purpose of which is to detect and cure disease. Politicization turns it into a partisan weapon designed for manipulation and coercion.

The very definition of "neutral" has changed. It now means "secular," with the abolition of long-accepted religious or patriotic expressions, replacing them with aggressive ideological advocacy and performative activism in clinical spaces.

Before politicization, medical experts were expected to be impartial, skilled consultants whose role was to guide less-qualified colleagues, reassure the public and advise policymakers about rational public health policies. Politicization of medicine has perverted this mission. Politicized medical experts do the bidding of their masters. They rubber stamp medical treatments and policies that are favored for political reasons even if they are harmful and ineffective. The primary function of such "experts" is to deceive their colleagues and the public.

Many people have started to question the sincerity of politicized experts, and the universal trust in previously reliable experts and institutions has crumbled. The vacuum has been filled by alternative authorities. Unfortunately, the quality of this newly founded industry is variable. Speculation, misinformation, propaganda and outright lies are inter-mixed with true and genuinely helpful information. These dissident experts lack the resources to undertake the sophisticated research needed to answer difficult scientific questions. While their role is indispensable, their abilities are limited.

The politicization of medicine should be stopped and abolished. This is unlikely to occur as long as a heated political climate combined with economic crisis favors the deployment of powerful partisan weapons. While awaiting better and more harmonious times, people of goodwill and conscience need to recognize that we are engaged in asymmetric warfare, and try to expose and oppose the politicization of medicine by any means available to them.

No one should be coerced to follow one set of politically motivated rules presented under the guise of "benevolent" public health policies or "scientific" medical care.

Freedom fighters must not lose hope. In asymmetric warfare, the superpower does not always win, as the American Revolution showed.

Ironically, Orient did not say whether she would stop her politicization of medicine.

Orient was back to good ol' misinformation in her Dec. 19 column, irresponsibly promoting the discredited notion that people across the world are suddenly dropping dead from getting the COVID vaccine and outrageously making Holocaust comparisons:

Some Germans who lived through World War II have said that they had no idea the Holocaust that was going on. Maybe they thought the reports were fake news or enemy propaganda, or that civilized Germans would never commit such crimes. One "denialist" was a bartender whose bar was downwind from the ovens. He claimed to have noticed nothing.

Humans have an enormous capacity to see no evil.

Holocaust denial might have been more excusable had the deaths been scattered and seemingly random, not concentrated in a vilified ethnic group, and had they resembled natural death. Sudden death occurs, doctors might say, as some did in my residency program: "We see this from time to time."

Some who knew full well that Jews were being murdered rationalized it by calling it an essential public health measure, claiming that Jews were the source of the dread typhus epidemic.

We of course are not like them, and nothing could be as evil as the Nazi Holocaust. But consider the possibility that a genuine epidemic might rationalize public health measures that (inadvertently, we presume) lead to death. One is not supposed to blame officials or question their policies. Instead, we blame the disease on noncompliant people, deny them medical care and even hope that they die.

Bodies are in fact accumulating, though not concentrated in an identifiable location. But we are in denial even about the occurrence of excess deaths.

[...]

Financial analyst Edward Dowd presented figures showing an 18% increase in excess deaths across all age groups in Australia, an unprecedented insurance catastrophe. The legacy media? Silent.

That's because Dowd's claims are not true. But who needs facts when there is a conspiracy theory to peddle? Orient continued:

Even raw numbers from actuaries vanish. But where are the bodies?

Many were cremated. Most were disposed of without autopsy. Hospitals and medical examiners don't like to do autopsies – insurance doesn't pay, and few families can pay a $5,000 cost out of pocket. The results in any event could be attributed to natural causes. An autopsy of journalist Grant Wahl's body revealed a ruptured aortic aneurysm. His widow said: "It's just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason it happened at this point in time." She also said: "His death was unrelated to vaccination status." Quite possibly true. But she did not say what his vaccination status was. (Wahl had been vaccinated and had received at least one booster.) Dr. Peter McCullough advises patients with prior aortic abnormalities to avoid COVID-19 vaccination because of potential damage from spike protein.

Wahl did, in fact, die of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, and there's no reason to trust such a ridiculous misinformer like McCullough. Orient concluded:

An alternative to an autopsy might be to do an MRI scan and preserve samples of tissue like liver or heart for tests that might become available later.

As it stands, we have an epidemic called Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS). Statistics on the full extent are being suppressed. One prominent physician told me he had never heard of it. The cause is not known, and few dare to suggest a connection with the mass vaccination campaign.

What we urgently need is a neutral scientific inquiry that is not politicized. The typhus epidemic showed that this is possible. Even Germans (aside from some murderous Nazis) became allies of their mortal enemies in the war against typhus-spreading lice. Using apolitical scientific analysis of the objective evidence, Nazis, Soviets, Americans, British and all Allies used virtually the same methods of prevention and treatment of epidemic typhus.

Why isn't that happening in America?

Because people like Orient spread lies and would demand that any such investigation be politicized to treat her lies seriously when there's no legitimate evidence to back them up. She chooses to spread lies and misinformation instead of facts in order to gain political advantage. She chooses to spread lies and misinformation instead of facts in order to gain political advantage, she has played a key role in poisoning the well with her misinformation, and there's no reason to trust anything she might be involved in.

Seeking new conspiracies

I am not acquainted with the physician, Dr. Medina Culver. Some people seem to disapprove of her because she has long hair, a flamboyant personality and a large following on social media, none of which seem relevant or newsworthy to me. Neither does her membership in America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) – which is also being sued for allegedly promoting the drug improperly.

The plain facts are that the patient had a telemed appointment with Dr. Culver in August 2021, at which time Dr. Culver reportedly prescribed hydroxychloroquine and/or ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment or "preventative therapy." Dr. Culver never performed a physical examination of Mr. Parker – it was a telemed visit, remember.

[...]

HCQ has been used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, is available without prescription in many places and is safer than many over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol.

Telehealth is touted as a great answer to physician shortages and difficult access to care – despite the inability to do a physical examination. Unless it involves an "off-label" prescription for COVID.

People die, often after taking a treatment. If it happens after a COVID vaccine, correlation doesn't prove causality, and beware of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this") logical fallacy. But different rules apply to early, officially disparaged COVID treatment.

More than 1 million U.S. deaths have been attributed to COVID. Very few of those patients probably received early treatment with a repurposed drug. More than 34,000 deaths have been reported in association with COVID vaccines, but causation has not been proved.

Finally, someone is suing because a patient was given HCQ or ivermectin, instead of because a hospital denied a patient ivermectin. Doctors who prescribe a potentially life-saving drug despite vilification by authorities, hospitals and medical associations had better take notice: malpractice attorneys may target you. Ditto for entities that organize telehealth services and/or provide favorable information on a repurposed drug.

Of course, that logical fallacy never stopped Orient from blaming Hamlin's collapse on a COVID vaccine, even though she had no evidence he ever had one.

From there, it was time for Orient to move on to other things in a bid to stay relevant. So she spent her March 30 column attacking transgender people:

The whole concept of a transition is bogus. A person of one sex does not turn into one of the opposite sex, either suddenly or gradually. One can only remove characteristic male or female features, say, by shaving the Adam's apple or amputating breasts; inducing changes such as a deep voice or beard or breast development with cross-sex hormones; or trying to surgically mimic anatomic parts of the opposite sex.

[...]

Some adults with gender dysphoria are evidently living successfully as a member of the opposite sex. They have had elaborate, expensive plastic surgery and expert medical management of their hormones and health complications. Persons who do not know them intimately may not suspect what sex they really are. Though such treatment may help some deeply troubled patients cope, surgery does not cure delusional thinking.

Heavy makeup is a vain, superficial attempt to cover up reality. Powerful hormones can unleash real, deeper problems. One of the only two lone female school shooters in U.S. history, killing six innocents this week, used the pronouns he/him. Will we ever learn how much testosterone this angry, suicidal person was given? Will we blame the person who sold the gun – or deadly transgender and rage-inciting ideology and the $5 billion industry that prescribes mind-altering therapy to mentally ill patients?

Happiness depends on accepting who you are – not on trying to force others to pretend that you are what you really aren't.

Orient spent her April 11 column shifting her conspiracy theories from medical to political over the (first) indictment of Donald Trump:

The triumphant anti-Trump crowd loves to say, "No one is above the law."

Most Americans have, however, felt safe from the dreaded knock on the door from the Gestapo or the KGB, from the "show me the man and I'll find you the crime" principle of Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's secret police chief.

Law-abiding Americans assume that since they have not assaulted or robbed anyone or deliberately disobeyed a regulation, they will never come in contact with the criminal justice system. After all, mens rea – criminal intent – is required. Americans are presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and they have a right to a prompt trial before an unbiased judge and jury.

But those are constitutional rights, and our "archaic" Constitution is being rewritten. Ordinary Americans, especially doctors who prescribe pain relief, have experienced the reality of politicized prosecutions for many years. But the Russian proverb has applied: "You'll know it's true when it happens to you."

Now that a former president has been criminally charged, the sordid process is at the top of the news.

[...]

Perhaps the Left wants Trump to win the primary, keeping out a younger person without the baggage, especially baggage from the COVID debacle. Other indictments may come down; lawfare and other attacks will continue; and electoral fraud has not been fixed, so Trump could well lose. Bragg's actions might stem from pure hatred, without strategic considerations. In any event, the theatrics are drowning out concerns such as deteriorating foreign policy and the destruction of the dollar.

Whether you love Trump or hate him, the weaponization and politicization of the criminal justice system and the shredding of the Constitution affects you, too.

Orient had a pronoun meltdown in her May 8 column:

Pronouns do not define your identity or create or solve social injustice.

Using an incorrect pronoun used to get you a red mark on your essay. Today, the red mark might be considered racist – a sign of white supremacy, implying that there is a correct answer. Or it might make someone feel unsafe or excluded.

Instead, there's now a permanent Scarlet Letter, or job loss and cancellation, for not using a person's preferred pronouns, no matter how ungrammatical.

[...]

Language is our tool for thinking, and even the smallest words count. Activists do not own pronouns, or English grammar, or our thoughts. They have no right to dictate our opinion of their gender or to force us to allow them access to our private spaces.

And they cannot change the reality of sex.

When in doubt -- and when fishing for a new right-wing narrative to latch onto -- going after people you don't like is always good clickbait, and Orient is playing that same game.

Orient jumped onto the right-wing anti-DEI bandwagon in her July 17 column:

Corporations, universities, and medical societies talk constantly about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). But the other side of inclusion is exclusion, and the two always go together.

[...]

We hear about the virtuous exclusion of people who wear MAGA hats, wrap themselves in an American flag while others wave the "Pride" flag, wear a cross, assert that there are two genders, or use the "wrong" pronouns. They can be kicked out of school, refused service at a restaurant, rejected for medical care, called vile names, denied the right to receive their diplomas at graduation, or otherwise treated like an untouchable, a pariah, or even a "terrorist." They can be excluded from polite society ("canceled"). Parents who complain about pornography in school libraries at a school board meeting might even risk arrest. Pro-life activists have even been excluded from normal life by being imprisoned.

"Diversity" refers to skin color or ethnicity, not to philosophy or opinion. The categories used by the U.S. Census Bureau for diversity measurements include Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, Black, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, and Pacific Islander. To improve their diversity score, universities need to exclude some better qualified applicants who happen to be White or Asian in order to include more persons from the other recognized groups who may be less qualified. The U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring admissions policy based on race to be unconstitutional, some fear, may have a "chilling effect" on "racial justice."

Nevertheless, Orient wanted to apply racial characteristics to her own inclusion and exclusion list:

Most of the hundreds of racial or ethnic groups in the world are excluded from the special preferences called "equity," no matter how disadvantaged they were historically or are now – e.g., Italians, Irish and Eastern Europeans.

Of course, there are people most of us would like to exclude from our lives – and from society. My list would include voyeurs, exhibitionists, child molesters, rapists, seducers and seductresses, trespassers, vandals, shoplifters, pornographers, drug and human traffickers, etc. – no matter how troubled their childhood or what race they are.

I want to include people who are respectful, punctual, orderly, honest, thrifty, loyal, competent, dependable and diligent – regardless of race or ethnicity. Don't you? Are these characteristics of "Whiteness"? Why isn't it "bigotry" to assume that? There are millions of non-Whites who meet or exceed these expectations for decent people in a civilized society.

I want to exclude people who are vulgar, insulting, tardy, slovenly, dishonest, wasteful, unfaithful, untrustworthy, incompetent, disruptive, or lazy. Don't you? There are millions of White people who fit that description. But it would be "discrimination" to exclude such a person if the person happened to be "diverse."

Orient refused to acknowledge that there discrimination based on race and ethnicity continues despite it being illegal, and it doesn't cease being discrimination because it's not overt or blatant. Which, of course, is the entire point behind DEI initiatives. She does not explain why DEI is so bad that it apparently must be dismantled. She instead served up an somewhat dishonest plea to get along:

I want children to be taught virtue and honor – not grievances. I want them to create a better world – not tear down the work of their imperfect ancestors and leave us with chaos. I want them to live in a world of ordered liberty with equal treatment under the law – not a world of censorship, snitching, arbitrary rules and constant fear.

Our country is sharply divided into factions about what should be included and what excluded – what is good and what is evil. The gap appears to be unbridgeable. Ultimately, everyone will have to take sides.

The problem is that it seems she doesn't see her fellow right-wingers as part of the problem. Her side doesn't want the imperfections of our ancestors to be discussed at all, and it is at least as guilty of spreading "censorship, snitching, arbitrary rules and constant fear" as she accuses liberals of doing. If that gap between those factions is as "unbridgeable" as she claims, she's part of the problem, and she is making no effort to do anything about it. If she changes her mind, apologizing for spreading all that COVID misinformation would be a good start.