{"id":20330,"date":"2021-10-22T10:50:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T17:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=20330"},"modified":"2021-10-22T10:52:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T17:52:17","slug":"meet-joe-manchins-appalling-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/10\/22\/meet-joe-manchins-appalling-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Joe Manchin\u2019s Appalling Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY LIZA FEATHERSTONE<\/a> (jacobinmag.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if his own record weren\u2019t bad enough, former coal baron and current West Virginia senator Joe Manchin\u2019s daughter Heather Bresch \u2014 who doubles as a major donor to Joe \u2014 is a price-gouging drug profiteer who has played a central role in her father\u2019s destructive political career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Heather Bresch holds up a two pack of EpiPens as she testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on September 21, 2016, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong \/ Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Should you maintain any lingering attachment to \u201cgirlboss\u201d ideology \u2014 the prevalent liberal idea that capitalism is better and more humane when women are in charge \u2014 the CV of Heather Bresch, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin<\/a>\u2019s daughter, makes for bracing reading. She\u2019s enjoyed some accolades as a smasher of glass ceilings. She was the first female CEO of a large pharmaceutical company and one of only eighteen women to run a Fortune 500 corporation. In 2014, Bresch was named one of Fortune<\/em> magazine\u2019s \u201c50 Most Powerful Women in Business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite a set of credentials. But looking more closely at the details of her career, Bresch has had a remarkably horrible impact on society, even by the usual standards of American capitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can always tell something about politicians by the connections of their close family members, spouses, and friends, as we argued here two years ago<\/a>. Such people influence the way they think \u2014 all things being equal, we\u2019d much rather elect a politician married to a nurse or a teacher, for example, than to a fossil fuel executive. Of course, humans aren\u2019t wholly responsible for their family members, thank goodness, and in not every case will a relative\u2019s questionable line of work affect a politician\u2019s capacity to govern sensibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, however, his daughter\u2019s former job \u2014 she was president, top lobbyist, and CEO of Mylan, a drug company \u2014 represents such a massive conflict of interest, with implications for policy that are shocking and disqualifying even by normal Washington, DC, standards. She\u2019s not only the senator\u2019s daughter, she\u2019s a major donor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s worse than that. Much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, the Intercept<\/em>\u2019s Ryan Grim reported<\/a> that Bresch worked with the CEO of Pfizer to keep the prices of the EpiPen artificially high. The EpiPen, as many readers with severe allergies know, is a lifesaving device patients carry with them in case of a serious allergic reaction that injects epinephrine into the body. As Grim reported, the emails about the 2011 deal between the CEOs were released as part of a lawsuit. Pfizer agreed to divest from its EpiPen competitor, giving Mylan a monopoly, allowing the company to continue raising prices without any competitive curb. (The deal \u2014 and the resulting price increase \u2014 was profitable to both companies, as Pfizer acquired King Pharmaceuticals, the company that made the epinephrine, while Mylan continued to make and distribute the device itself.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2007, when Mylan first got the rights to the EpiPen, a two pack cost less than $100; after Bresch cut the aforementioned deal with Pfizer, the price increased to more than $600, with catastrophic results, especially for those who had to pay full price due to lack of adequate insurance coverage. As CNBC reported in 2016<\/a>, the EpiPen only costs a couple dollars to make \u2014 including the drug. Oh, and as a side note, after the price increase, Manchin\u2019s wife, Gayle Conelly Manchin, lobbied for federal legislation requiring schools to have EpiPens onsite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manchins are truly the worst family in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pfizer has settled a lawsuit on price-fixing in the case, and a similar legal action against Mylan is ongoing. Bresch stepped down from Mylan last year amid criticism over the unconscionable price increases. (Also, in 2017, Mylan was fined<\/a> $465 million for ripping off Medicaid. You go, girl!) Bresch\u2019s exit package was an eye-popping $37.6 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could buy a lot of EpiPens with that, even at gouged prices. Perhaps that\u2019s why Bresch\u2019s remorse over this episode<\/a> \u2014 expressed when she was questioned about it by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform \u2014 has seemed pro forma at best: with such a \u201cretirement\u201d nest egg, why should she care if children die? As one 2016 Bloomberg Business headline<\/a> put it: \u201cMylan CEO Regrets Patient Blowback, But Not Expanded EpiPen Use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason Joe Manchin is famous right now is that he is holding up a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package<\/a> that will allow American society to address a wide array of urgent social and environmental needs. It is crucial to the everyday survival of millions of working-class Americans, and the fate of life on Earth, as well as the short-term electoral future of the Democrats. One of the most popular provisions in that bill would make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies, a policy change that would vastly complicate the sort of shenanigans that have made Manchin\u2019s daughter such a rich woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all have disreputable relatives, but Manchin is implicated in his daughter\u2019s career \u2014 she got her first job at Mylan after her dad put in a good word for her. What\u2019s more, Bresch is far more involved than most daughters in her father\u2019s career. As OpenSecrets reported last month<\/a> after Grim\u2019s story broke, Bresch\u2019s company \u2014 PAC and employees \u2014 was one of Joe Manchin\u2019s largest campaign contributors before it was purchased by Viatris in 2020. The largest donor to the Mylan PAC during the 2010 and 2012 cycles was Heather Bresch. In 2016 and 2018, Bresch and her husband, Jeff, a former partner at the law firm Jones Day, donated the maximum amount as individuals to Manchin\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Tuesday, protesters with the Sunrise Movement, Ohio Valley Environmental Resistance, and Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America picketed Bresch\u2019s $10 million home<\/a> in Pittsburgh. Protesters asked Bresch<\/a> to lobby her father to stop cutting the full $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, with no cuts to its investments in human survival and a livable planet. The protesters delivered a job offer letter<\/a> to her, pointing out that 68 percent of West Virginia voters want the full legislation to pass, including the climate provisions, but Manchin \u201cdoes not listen to his constituents and is trying to cut the bill into nothing. So, we need someone he will listen to . . . we believe that is you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wrongdoing of his daughter should not overshadow the full horror Manchin\u2019s awfulness as an individual. He was a coal baron before he was a senator, and he collects half a million dollars a year in dividends from his coal company. No wonder he opposes all the most important climate provisions in the proposed budget. His own conflicts of interest would disqualify him from office, if we had a sensible constitution aimed at preventing the capture and control of government by capitalists. Since we don\u2019t, his constituents should have the good sense to vote him out. They\u2019ve got plenty of good reasons to do so, but his Big Pharma daughter surely offers one more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Liza Featherstone is a columnist for\u00a0Jacobin<\/em>, a freelance journalist, and the author of\u00a0Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers\u2019 Rights at Wal-Mart<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Submitted by Gwyllm Llwydd)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY LIZA FEATHERSTONE (jacobinmag.com) As if his own record weren\u2019t bad enough, former coal baron and current West Virginia senator Joe Manchin\u2019s daughter Heather Bresch \u2014 who doubles as a major donor to Joe \u2014 is a price-gouging drug profiteer who has played a central role in her father\u2019s destructive… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20332,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20330\/revisions\/20332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}