Cheryl Hines uses Joe Rogan podcast to slam media portrayal of husband RFK Jr and says the antivaxxer doesn’t want to ‘hurt people’

Actor Cheryl Hines appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and insisted that her husband — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr — was being misrepresented by the media as someone who "is trying to hurt people."

Hines sat down with Rogan this week for an interview that included a discussion of her husband's portrayal in non-conservative media.

“When people talk about Bobby and they want to paint him as somebody who is trying to hurt people… it’s like look at his career and who he is and what he’s accomplished," she said. “He spent a lot of time suing huge corporations because they were polluting waterways, which was hurting people, killing people, and giving people cancer.”

Hines said his legal work showed that his intentions are only to help the general public.

“So why would he spend all of his life fighting for people, fighting for individuals, and then suddenly change and want to hurt people?” she said. “It just doesn’t track.”

open image in gallery

Despite placing the blame for her husband's reputation on the media, it is not news organizations claiming Kennedy's leadership is dangerous, but rather health experts.

In October, six former Surgeons General — who served collectively under every president since George H. W. Bush — wrote a letter published in The Washington Post warning the public that "the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are endangering the health of the nation."

"Over recent months, we have watched with increasing alarm as the foundations of our nation’s public health system have been undermined. Science and expertise have taken a back seat to ideology and misinformation," they wrote. "Morale has plummeted in our health agencies, and talent is fleeing at a time when we face rising threats — from resurgent infectious diseases to worsening chronic illnesses."

The Surgeons General cited Kennedy's propensity for "advancing dangerous and discredited claims about vaccines," including the "thoroughly discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism" and "misinformation about the HPV vaccine," among their points of criticism.

Last fall, when Donald Trump and Kennedy trotted out their alleged findings linking Tylenol to childhood autism, medical professionals pushed back on their claims. When questioned about mothers seeking pain relief during pregnancy, Trump suggested they "tough out" their symptoms.

“Having a fever and just toughing it out is unacceptable in pregnancy,” Dr. Melissa Simon, the vice chair for research in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University, told WTTW.

She said avoiding Tylenol for pain or fever relief over autism fears "can lead to far more harm than taking Tylenol to relieve the fever."

open image in gallery

"The same thing with pain, toughing it out — the president nor other people who are telling women who are pregnant should just tough it out with respect to fever and pain have not been pregnant. Tylenol is considered the safest over-the-counter choice when treating either a fever or pain,” she said.

Kennedy later softened his position after initial blowback to his announcement, insisting the data were merely "suggestive" of a link.

“We’ve all said from the beginning that the causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy … is not sufficient to say it definitely caused autism, but it is very suggestive,” he said in late October.

In Samoa, an island nation of 200,000, more than 5,700 people contracted measles, and 83 died in 2019.

The Samoan Ministry of Health cited Kennedy's visit to the island the same year and his vaccine skepticism for encouraging locals to forgo vaccines at a critical time to stop the spread.

“The Samoan incident showed us how disinformation can kill,” Dr. Paul Offit, who has followed Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism for more than 20 years, told The Guardian. “He sowed further distrust, he jumped all over it – he met with anti-vaxxers in Samoa to promote the notion that ‘it’s not measles, it’s the vaccine’, and immunization rates dropped.”

Kennedy insists he is not anti-vaccine, but rather supports vaccines that have been rigorously vetted for safety.

open image in gallery

However, the HHS secretary in June removed all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own hand-picked members.

Around the same time, former CDC Director Susan Monarez resigned and warned Congress that Kennedy was turning the health organization into a tool for enacting his ideological beliefs on the nation.

Monarez and former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry testified that the agency had been "reduced to a rubber stamp" under Kennedy's leadership.

"Due to the secretary's actions, our nation is on track to see drastic increases in preventable diseases and declines in health," Houry said.

The Independent has requested comment from the DHHS.