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Did Neera Tanden Criticize Joe Manchin’s Daughter for Raising the Price of EpiPens?
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Did Neera Tanden Criticize Joe Manchin’s Daughter for Raising the Price of EpiPens?

She has tweeted criticizing CEO pay, but claims otherwise lack evidence.

Alec Dent
Feb 25, 2021
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Did Neera Tanden Criticize Joe Manchin’s Daughter for Raising the Price of EpiPens?
thedispatch.com
(Photograph by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.)

On Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin announced that he would not support President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, likely preventing her from reaching the necessary votes for approval. As the sole Democrat in the Senate to oppose Tanden, some critics began to suggest that Manchin’s vote might be a response  to the fact that Tanden had criticized his daughter, Heather Bresch, for raising the price of the EpiPen while CEO of the company that produces it.

Twitter avatar for @peebsnjayTime For Change @peebsnjay
Sen Manchin's refusal to vote to confirm Neera Tandem isn't about gender or race. It's about Tandem's past comments on the CEO of Mylar raising the price of Epipen to an unaffordable price The CEO back then was Heather Bresch, aka Heather MANCHIN Bresch, Joe Manchin's daughter

February 24th 2021

2,558 Retweets4,449 Likes

In January 2012, Bresch became the chief executive officer of Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that had purchased the rights to the EpiPen in 2007. Bresch had previously held other roles in the company, having started with the company in 1992. Mylan began to slowly increase the price of EpiPens, from around $100 for a two-pack in 2007 to just under $200 when Bresch took over in 2012. During her time at the helm of Mylan, the price of EpiPens increased even more rapidly, reaching $609 for a two-pack in 2016, at which time the price increases caused a public outcry. While Bresch denied wrongdoing, she said the company took “full responsibility” for raising the price of the drug.

Severaltweetsalleging Tanden publicly spoke out against the price hikes of EpiPen linked to a 2016 Chicago Tribunearticle. The article—which was actually originally published by the Washington Post—makes no mention of Tanden. Newsweek’s article about Tanden’s remarks about Bresch cited only a tweet in which Tanden responded to a pay raise Bresch received, criticizing the idea that “only CEO (sic) contributes to a company's growth and not all employees.”

Twitter avatar for @neeratandenNeera Tanden @neeratanden
The idea that only CEO contributes to a company's growth and not all employees is really pernicious

Curtis Sittenfeld @csittenfeld

OMFG--from Times article about Mylan CEO Heather Bresch. https://t.co/1uzUwKYcNI

August 27th 2016

359 Retweets1,195 Likes

Beyond that tweet, no statements from Tanden about Bresch, EpiPens, or Mylan have been yet uncovered. While president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Tanden hosted an event on high drug prices, interviewing Sen. Amy Klobuchar on the matter. The event took place in 2016, and there was discussion of the EpiPen price increase, though most comments came from Klobuchar, with Tanden’s most specific remark about Bresch being: “If you've been watching the news, you know how timely this discussion is: From Mylan to Turing [Pharmaceuticals], drug companies have made headlines by putting profits above patients and squeezing American consumers.”

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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Did Neera Tanden Criticize Joe Manchin’s Daughter for Raising the Price of EpiPens?
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Aylene Wright
Feb 26, 2021

Now this is the kind of fact check that I appreciate, because it's not about a wacky conspiracy theory that 5% of the country seriously believes, and it's not about parsing the drivel spewing from a politician's mouth. It's about a story that sounds plausible, but almost too good to be true, and so it was.

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Jason Bellomo
Writes The Bell Tower Newsletter Feb 25, 2021

I’m shocked that the esteemed peebsnjay would unfairly malign Mrs. Tandem.

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