Sometimes you're reading an article, maybe the tenth or twelfth article about the same topic in the last few days, and you get to the end, and buried there at the end is a puzzle piece that you didn't know was missing, and the whole stupid thing comes into new focus. And suddenly, you can put the whole thing, and maybe even more than just this one whole thing, in one simple sentence.
"What's so unusual about the pricing furor is that it has been orchestrated almost solely by parents and family members of people who use EpiPens. Patient advocacy groups, which typically are vocal on all issues related to food allergies, have been largely silent.
Some of the most prominent groups -- Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) and Allergy & Asthma Network -- have partnerships with Mylan for patient awareness campaigns and other programming. The groups are not required to disclose how much money they receive from the drug company; but Mylan, in its 2015 Social Responsibility report, lists all three as “allies.”
Since 2011, Mylan says, it has provided more than $10 million in funding for “educational efforts,” such as sponsorships and grants, and has received corporate citizen awards from FARE and the Allergy & Asthma Network."
The whole thing, in one sentence, then: If your "patient advocacy group" receives millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies, it's probably not really a "patient advocacy group"--or at least not a very good one.
