 For kids and adults suffering severe allergies, a single peanut or a single garden bee sting can be be fatal. That's why millions of Americans, including my sister, they rely on epipens. They shoot life-saving drug epinephrum into the body that can make a difference between life and death if there's a severe allergic outbreak. Now these pens, which are almost all manufactured by the same company, Myland Pharmaceuticals, have skyrocketed in price. A pair used to cost about $100. That's just seven years ago in 2009. Now they are setting families back as much as $600. This massive price hike has prompted several lawmakers to call for an investigation. That segment was published on August 24, 2016, and the individual responsible for that price hike is Heather Riesch, the CEO of Milan. Now this individual isn't just the CEO of Milan. She also happens to be the daughter of Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. Now at the time when this news broke, Joe Manchin actually had the audacity to defend his daughter and claim that contrary to what you're seeing, she's actually really compassionate. He said, my daughter is my daughter with unconditional love, and she's the most amazing person that I know. He continued, she's so compassionate and generous in how she's always lived her life. Yeah, doesn't really seem like it. The former West Virginia governor said that ever since Brech has been at Milan and he's been in politics, we made a point to keep those parts of our lives separate, except everything that he said there is literally backwards. His daughter is not compassionate because if she were compassionate, she wouldn't have hiked up the price of this life-saving drug. People may die because of what she did. We don't have the numbers. It hasn't been quantified to my knowledge, but what she did, she knew how catastrophic that could be, but she did it anyway because she wanted to increase profits for her company. And he says that when it comes to her life as the CEO of Milan and my life in politics, we try to keep those things separate, except that's not the case because executives at Milan donated a combined $180,000 to Joe Manchin. So it's not separate. There's a conflict of interest. He's representing them as a donor and also because this is his daughter. Now in 2018, after he said that in 2016, he was asked about this during a debate between him and his Republican opponent. And as you're going to see, he totally sidestepped the question, refused to answer. Senator Manchin, 2016 Milan pharmaceuticals became embroiled in a controversy. After the cost of the life-saving EpiPen had shot up 500% in just a few years. Your daughter, Heather Bresch, Milan CEO was grilled on Capitol Hill for that price spike. You defended her and said the attacks on her salary of $19 million were quote unquote sensational. Records show Milan employees and executives have contributed over $180,000 to your campaign. You also said the real problem was the convoluted system that drove up the price. Why Senator was Manchin justified? Why was Milan justified? In charging $600 for a two-pack of life-saving drugs that cost about $20 to $30 to make? First of all, Hoppe, the system is broken. It has been broken. Patrick Morrissey helped break it because he profits more from being broken than fixing it. Next of all, I can't tell you on a publicly traded company how they are very, very convincing. Senator Manchin very, very convincing. Now the reason why I'm talking about this again is because we have an update. Thanks to the phenomenal reporting of Ryan Grimm at the Intercept, we now know that for sure his daughter, Heather Bresch, was directly involved with this scheme to hike up the price of EpiPens. So he explains, Heather Bresch, the former president and CEO of the drugmaker Milan, worked directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep prices of the company's EpiPen product artificially high according to new documents released as part of an ongoing lawsuit. The documents also show Bresch approving a scheme to force customers captured by the company's monopoly to purchase two EpiPens at once, regardless of medical need. The EpiPen is an auto-injectable device that injects epinephrine into the body and can be the difference between life or death for a person suffering a severe allergic reaction. The documents were released as part of an ongoing antitrust suit in federal court. In June, Judge Daniel Crabtree issued a summary judgment partially siding with Milan and partially siding with the plaintiffs, meaning the case goes on. Late last week, the judge unsealed some of the documents underlying the plaintiff's case. Among the documents is an email sent on behalf of Bresch, who was the daughter of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to her counterpart at Pfizer, then-CEO Ian Reed. In the email sent in January of 2011, Bresch confirms a previous discussion with Reed in which she says that the two agreed that as part of a deal, Pfizer would disinvest from its EpiPen competitor AdrenaClick, eliminating its main competitor would then allow Milan to continue raising its prices. In 2007, when Milan acquired the rights to market the drug from Merck by buying its specialty pharmaceutical subsidiary Day, a two-pack cost less than $100, a tiny fraction of what it costs today. The result of the deal with Merck was that Milan manufactured part of the EpiPen delivery system, but not the medication itself, while owning the brand name and the right to distribute the whole product. The drug itself was produced by King Pharmaceuticals, which manufactured it exclusively for Milan. King in 2010 announced it would be purchased by Pfizer, which was licensed to sell AdrenaClick, an EpiPen competitor the previous year. The deal between Pfizer and Milan led the former to withdraw its competitor from the market and partner with Milan on EpiPen, locking down a monopoly. Following the deal with Pfizer, Milan drove the price above $600 within five years. Meanwhile, Gail Manchin, Brecht's mother, lobbied states to require schools to stock Epinephrine as the head of the National Association of State Boards of Education. Gail Manchin was recently confirmed to serve as co-chair of the Federal Appalachian Regional Commission, a government agency tasked with promoting economic development across the region's 13 states. So this story isn't super surprising, of course. This is what his daughter did as the CEO of Milan. These sorts of price-fixing schemes, this is actually a very common occurrence in the pharmaceutical world. It's why we have to utilize antitrust laws, and we need to get serious about nationalizing these pharmaceutical companies. But really, I'm sharing this information with you, because, I mean, does it not really explain everything you need to know about Joe Manchin? This entire family has been a blemish in America. Just awful, a plague on America. And Joe Manchin is basically blocking what little progress we might be able to make. He doesn't support the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Bernie Sanders is pushing, which would expand Medicare, because his donors, they don't like the idea of public insurance even being expanded a little bit. He is against voting rights, which allow Republicans to continue to rig elections effectively in their states and win using voter suppression and gerrymandering. I mean, this man is a tool of the industry, and it's not just that he's corrupt. His daughter was a part of that. His wife is a part of that. They're all working together. I'm assuming that he's still with his daughter's mother. But if not, this entire family, it's like they're going out of their way to fuck over Americans. And it's so disgusting. Why do we put up with this? Why do we put up with this? It goes to show you that politicians are super comfortable. CEOs are super comfortable. They know there's not going to be any accountability legally for them. And if there is, it'll be a slap on the wrist. So it's easier to just like do what's bad and pay the fine because you're going to rake in billions in profits. And politicians, they know that, you know, once they're in office, that incumbency advantage that they have is truly almost magical. I mean, Joe Manchin has done fuck all for the people of West Virginia and he keeps getting elected again and again and again. And this is why nothing changes. I mean, this is truly disgusting. The fact that he has a daughter in the pharmaceutical world when he's a lawmaker in and of itself is pretty gross. But when you consider the fact that this company donated to his campaign, I mean, it's just, it's so corrupt. But all of this is legal. Now, when it comes to the price fixing, we'll see, you know, depending on the result of this case, if they get away with it. But my prediction would be that there's going to be basically no consequences for, you know, his daughter. She should be in prison for doing this. She should absolutely be in prison. Joe Manchin should resign in shame. But of course, you know, nothing is going to happen. But at a minimum, the best we can do is equip ourselves with knowledge of said corruption. So we know how to change the system. It's just a matter of whether or not there's a motive to do that. And, you know, I feel like people are just a little bit too comfortable and they just, they've just accepted that corruption is the norm in American society as it relates to politics and business. So they just let it happen. But this really is not normal. Even if it's common, this isn't normal. And this shouldn't be allowed. It shouldn't be acceptable. But here we are. Now, I would encourage you to read the full article because it is very, very long and detailed. So we didn't even scratch the surface. But Ryan Grimm is very thorough. There's also some email receipts that he shares. So yeah, you know, check it out. I don't think you're going to be too surprised. But still, I do think it's important that you know about this, like you know where Joe Manchin is coming from. His entire family is just terrible.