ACT UP Smashes EpiPen Pinata Outside Pharma Company

ACT UP/NY Smashes EpiPen Pinata Outside Mylan Pharma

The activist group long associated with HIV causes decries price hikes on various pharmaceuticals.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

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Neal Broverman

September 17 2016 9:30 AM EST

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1. Abrahm DeVine, Stanford University, Swim

ACT UP/NYC took their activism to the streets this week, when members smashed an EpiPen pinata outside the offices of Mylan Pharmaceuticals to protest the company's price hikes on their drugs, including a 1,100 percent increase for the EpiPen, which stops allergic reactions.

The pinata was filled with gold coins -- a nod to the cost of an EpiPen jumping from $50 in 2004 to $600 in 2016, and Mylan CEO Heather Bresch's recent raise, which upped her salary from $2.5 million to $19 million. ACT UP protesters chanted, "Heather Bresch, whaddya say? How many kids have you killed today?"

ACT UP -- joined by members of Voices of Community Activists and Leaders and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines -- also took aim at price hikes for Gilead's hepatitis C drug Sovaldi, which is now $1,000 a pill; Naloxone, a medication used for opioid overdoses that costs 17 times more than it did in 2014; and Insulin, which jumped 200 percent in price between 2002 and 2013.

"Since American taxpayers fund much of the research that goes into creating these medications, we can't then hand it off to pharmaceutical companies to charge exorbitant prices that we can't afford or that bankrupt us," ACT UP member Mark Milano said. "High drug prices reduce accessibility and risk people's lives."