Talk:Heather Bresch

Early life and career

Regarding the Early Life and Early Career sections, there are a few minor items I think would be worth taking a quick look at before stamping it as  Done:

1. Should we include that she felt motivated to succeed in business, because her grandfather said women didn't have a place in business? (Source).
2. Should we include that she worked at her father's carpet store and her grandfather's market as a child?(Source)
3. Should it include the non-controversial fact that she attended MBA classes?
4. Should the MBA controversy be located under Early Life and Education or somewhere else?

Regarding the Controversy section, I think it would be worthwhile to have an RfC on it at some point, to see if consensus can be established. Right now I'm counting 4 against a dedicated section and 3 in favor of it; no clear opinions given on where it should go if it is kept in a dedicated section, except that Nomo supports having it where it is. Possibly something to save for later after more significant aspects of the article are worked out. CorporateM (Talk) 18:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I don't have an opinion right now on the other points (no time), but I do have one on the controversy section. I think that when the Executive career section is fleshed out, there will be a place where her promotion to Chief Operating Officer is mentioned. I think that THAT is where the controversy stuff belongs. Rationale: She was appointed COO and at that time claimed to have an MBA. The Post-Gazette inquired at WVU, which started the chain of events that led to the M.B.A. controversy. Lou Sander (talk) 23:28, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment: 1) Include the anecdote about her grandfather's comment; this is a biography and it sounds like that motivated her significantly. 2) Childhood jobs = no 3) The part about taking MBA classes is relevant for the MBA degree/controversy section. (I don't know how many credits she has to go but if I were this woman I would do whatever it takes to finish that degree.) 4) I think the MBA thing should stay under education: it was a controversy about whether or not she has an advanced degree. I don't think it belongs under any kind of chronology section, like it would if she were a lot older and it happened later in her life (eg going back to school). WP guidelines for BLP (WP:CRITS) guard against against "Controversy" sections. It should be as brief as possible and link to the main article. I've only glanced at it but it seems a lot of the blame fell on the school and was not the result of her direct actions. Lying about having an MBA (or letting people believe you had a degree), in the big scheme of things, while it shows extremely poor choice, it doesn't affect that many people. She's a private citizen; if she were running for political office then it would be more significant. —Мандичка^YO 😜 00:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I would lean towards the opposite of Wikimanida (including her childhood jobs, but not her grandfather's comments), but I don't have a strong opinion. It feels like a BLP issue if the only thing we include about her grandfather is being sexist. I don't think the mundane fact that she attended classes should be in a "MBA controversy" section - as this is not controversial or a part of the controversy. Regarding the controversy itself, better to revisit after the rest of the article is improved. Currently it would create a massive undue issue in any section it was moved to anyway. CorporateM (Talk) 20:00, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment I see no problem with #1 so long as we say what the source says and don't give it too much weight. No problem with #2 or #3. As far as #4, it's part of her education so why are we even discussing where that goes? §FreeRangeFrog^croak 08:04, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment For 1, 2, 3: As repeated above, let's wait for the rest to be fleshed out before dwelling on whether these issues would be undue or not. As such, the subsections seem to stubby to warrant such splitting and all three additions would seem out of context and a bit undue. For 4, erk...this one is a tricky. I would again say the same thing. Judging by what I read in the MBA controversy page, I am a little inclined against summarising it to the main controversy page, as she doesn't seem to be very much at the center of it compared to the university. Summarising would require us to go into a lot of details. A shorter mention is probably enough. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 06:55, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Advocacy section

I'd like to remove the primary sources from the Advocacy section and replace them with secondary sources. Here's some suggestions/comments/notes giving the section a quick look-over. Currently most of the section's content relies on primary sources about trivial things and it does not include the things she is primarily notable for based on the sources.

1. I suggest we delete what is currently citation 10 (press release), 13 and 14 (primary sources) and any corresponding content not supported by a secondary source
2. I don't think Bresch testifying to congress is that significant, at least from the viewpoint of the sources. I don't think any of the in-depth profiles about her mention it[1][2][3][4] I suggest replacing those primary sources with what secondary sources suggest are significant, which is lobbying for things like the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, increasing FDA regulation of out-sourced pharmaceutical manufacturing and the Generic Drug User Fee Act, lobbying for epinephrine in schools, etc. I have a quick first-draft I put together a while back[5] (bolded means might be trimmable context) As previously discussed, all of laws she lobbied for benefit her employer Mylan as she was lobbying for their interests.
3. I think the ideal start of this section would be to include the relevant job title: "From 2002 to 2005, Bresch served as Mylan's director of government relations."

CorporateM (Talk) 17:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, taking a first look at your draft section "Government relations and advocacy": It's an improvement but not yet ready for prime time.

• We need a good strong source (reference 3 is currently blank) to support the very strong claim that she "was influential" in the passage of the Medicare drug bill. We can't include this claim without a good source. Reference 4 is not necessary.

 Done Some of the references had stuff like "ref name='four'" where the area where the full citation was had been trimmed as we covered other subjects. I've restored them. I disagree about cite 4; it's awkward to say she helped get a law passed and not describe what that law was, but I've removed it anyway. I also toned down the "influential" to "contributed to" CorporateM (Talk) 16:48, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

• Reference 5 is a good strong source for the fact that she proposed the foreign drug bill to congress. It should be appended to the sentence that says so, since that is a strong claim. The paragraph includes several other blank references (1, 6) which should be completed or removed. Reference 7 also supports the claim, but in kind of a puffery way; I guess it's OK as a second reference for her role there. Reference 8 is good. Those two paragraphs should be combined into one.

 Done Added cite 5 to the suggested location; Did a bit of trimming to combine the two paragraphs. Coding issue fixed to fill-in the citations. CorporateM (Talk) 16:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that most of the bolded stuff can be left out; you can keep "To advocate for the new law, she made regular visits to Washington, D.C., and sponsored a whitepaper", which is well supported by reference 8.

 Done CorporateM (Talk) 17:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that particular testimony to Congress is trivial compared to the lobbying you describe, and that the current "advocacy" section should be scrapped. --MelanieN (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @MelanieN:. I've made all your suggested edits to the draft. There were a couple I would have done slightly differently, but I think fall under WP:COIMICRO and are not important enough to be worthwhile to debate. Nomo I think may oppose a copy/paste approach or have other content objections. I suggest we give him time to chime-in. I'll give it a fresh look too, just to make sure everything is directly supported by the source and whatnot. CorporateM (Talk) 17:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

All OK except for the first paragraph. (BTW I misplaced the link for your draft; it is here if anyone else wants to help evaluate it.) I still have a bit of a problem with the role, if any, she played in Medicare Part D. You've toned it down to "contributed to the development". I actually find evidence for even that much to be lacking. Your link says she played a "vital role" but I'm dubious; that article is from 10 years after the act was passed and it is a bit of a puff piece - an interview than sourced reporting. But a more contemporary (2006) article about Part D in her hometown paper, which quoted her extensively, didn't say anything at all about any role she may have played in writing it or getting it passed.[6] (That's also a good source for her title as Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning during that time.) Can you suggest how we should handle this?

It's good that we now have a solid paragraph about her contributions to the overseas inspection act, because it is well documented that she was the prime mover - the act was basically her doing and is her main claim to notability. I would be OK with copy-pasting your proposed section "Government relations and advocacy" into the article in place of the current section. --MelanieN (talk) 18:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Cool; that is a reasonable point regarding MMA. However you or others prefer to handle it would be A-ok by me. I could imagine just adding "According to" so that it's not in Wikipedia's voice, leaving it as-is, as a toned down version of the source (the source is promotional, but I don't think it contains outright lies, as would be the case if she wasn't involved at all), or just trimming it entirely. Maybe someone else like @Drmies: will pop in with a suggestion of great wisdom. CorporateM (Talk) 18:32, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't do wisdom in the summer: it's too hot. Thanks Corp, and thanks MelanieN for your work. Drmies (talk) 21:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

@CorporateM: I was going to move the section "Government relations and advocacy" from your draft to this article, replacing the "Advocacy" section. But Wikipedia complained that some of your sources are not defined. The sources must have the full citation elsewhere in your draft, and an undefined name in this one section. Can you fix this? and then I will move the section into the article. Thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 17:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN: I can't tell for sure from your comments, but just in case you need a good way to format references, I've found this to be a very good one: https://tools.wmflabs.org/makeref/ . Lou Sander (talk) 17:47, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Lou, but I was just going to be lazy and let CorporateM do it- since it's their draft. --MelanieN (talk) 17:49, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Personally I'm excited about the visual editor getting an auto-fill feature. All the sources in the draft are already in Cite News templates though. CorporateM (Talk) 18:44, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, try it yourself and use Page Preview. It gives a message saying "Warning: Heather Bresch is calling Template:Cite news with more than one value for the "newspaper" parameter. Only the last value provided will be used." And it claims that the refs named "barrons" and "uhioq" have not been defined. --MelanieN (talk) 19:36, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN:  Done Oh I see. I've fixed it. CorporateM (Talk) 22:41, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that took care of the undefined references. But it is still giving the message "Warning: Heather Bresch is calling Template:Cite news with more than one value for the "newspaper" parameter. Only the last value provided will be used." I could ignore that and go ahead and paste it in, or you could figure out what the problem is and fix it. --MelanieN (talk) 23:06, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Oops, it should actually be fixed now. I fixed one citation that had two "newspaper" parameters, but there was apparently a second one I missed. I'm always happy to fix citation errors in article-space too as a non-controversial COI edit. CorporateM (Talk) 15:18, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, now we've got it! I inserted the revised section. I just didn't want to put it in article-space with an error. Too proud, I guess. 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 15:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Awesome. Do you have any interest in taking a look at the business executive section as well? It is intended to also replace the current Recognition section, which has a lot of sources I consider to be primary sources, per WP:ORGAWARDS. The current article also doesn't include very much, once again, about what she is primarily notable for, such as being one of few female CEOs of a big company and leading the company's controversial tax inversion strategy. CorporateM (Talk) 17:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

EpiPens

EpiPens, mentioned in the article, are proprietary to Mylan. Especially since there is a self-serving side to her advocating their deployment, and since a COI editor is involved in this article, I think this needs to be pointed out somehow. In following the various EpiPen links, I also see that the photo of the EpiPen is of a non-current version, and that there isn't much mention of the fact that EpiPens are particularly important in treating serious anaphylactic episodes of peanut allergy. I can take care of the latter stuff, but I'd prefer that somebody else takes on the delicate task of mentioning the self-interest side of Bresch's involvement in this noble cause. Lou Sander (talk) 20:36, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Executive careers and Recognition sections

Currently the article contains a dedicated "Recognition" section that includes trivial awards like being listed as an "Emerging Pharma Leader" or listed as a leading female by FiercePharma. It's unlikely these awards carry any significance; I believe their inclusion is promotional and having a dedicated Awards section is just as bad as dedicated Controversy sections. What I'd like to suggest is we eliminate these awards and include only ones that are supported by secondary sources (as defined by WP:ORGAWARDS) whereby the source is independent of the award organizers and the content is incorporated into relevant topic areas, rather than in a dedicated section.

This is what I've taken a shot at here in addition to adding more information about what she's done asa a CEO thus far, such as the controversial tax inversion strategy. Open to discussion. CorporateM (Talk) 03:47, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I would keep the Fortune and Esquire awards as I found independent sources covering the awards themselves. The other two do not seem to have much independent coverage. As for your text, I would specify the year for the Fortune ranking. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:55, 27 June 2015 (UTC)