Mylan’s CEO on Wednesday called a USA Today article questioning whether her mother pushed for schools to buy the company’s EpiPens a “cheap shot.”
Heather Bresch during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing said that Mylan has worked in recent years to expand access to the allergy-saving drug EpiPen in schools and criticized a recent USA Today story on her mother’s work to expand access to EpiPens in schools while she was the head of an education association.
USA Today reported earlier this year that in 2012 Bresch’s mother, Gayle Manchin, who is the wife of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., helped spearhead efforts to expand access to EpiPens in schools while she was head of the National Association of State Boards of Education.
“While people want to criticize Mylan, I certainly thought it was a cheap shot to bring my mother into this,” she said.
She said the company’s efforts to expand EpiPens is to prevent deaths from happening at schools due to allergic reactions. She pointed to Congress and state legislatures that allowed schools to stock EpiPens and use them in case of emergencies.
Bresch came under fire from Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., for the contracts provided to schools that forced them to not buy discounted EpiPens from competitors. New York and West Virginia have opened antitrust investigations into the contracts.
“Your own mother is out there lobbying to make sure they [are] inside their schools,” Duckworth said.
Bresch responded that was inaccurate and said that if schools didn’t like the contract they “didnt have to buy our pens.”
