Today in crony capitalism:

After Gayle Manchin took over the National Association of State Boards of Education in 2012, she spearheaded an unprecedented effort that encouraged states to require schools to purchase medical devices that fight life-threatening allergic reactions.
The association’s move helped pave the way for Mylan Specialty, maker of EpiPens, to develop a near monopoly in school nurses’ offices. Eleven states drafted laws requiring epinephrine auto-injectors. Nearly every other state recommended schools stock them after what the White House called the “EpiPen Law” in 2013 gave funding preference to those that did.
The CEO of Mylan then, and now, was Heather Bresch. Gayle Manchin is Heather Bresch’s mother.

And, of course, the wife of West Virginia’s senior senator, Joe Manchin.

Mylan, you will recall, is under congressional investigation for the massive price hikes it announced last month — which, as it happens, may be the most offensive irony in this whole nauseating episode, given that those hikes are attributable, in no small part, to congressional meddling.