(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong, the Department of Consumer Protection and Department of Public Health today announced an $8 million settlement with Mylan over allegations the pharmaceutical company illegally inflated prices for EpiPens in violation of state antitrust and consumer protection laws. 

In addition to the $8 million payment, Mylan will provide the state with 10,000 free EpiPens in the form of 5,000 two-packs. 

EpiPen is the brand name for the single dose, self-injectable device consisting of the prescription drug epinephrine used to treat severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. At its height, EpiPen sales were approximately $1 billion per year. Today, its sales are approximately $469 million per year. In 2016, Mylan faced widespread public criticism following an approximately 400 percent price increase. This spurred Congressional hearings, a Federal Trade Commission investigation, and class action and competitor lawsuits.

Complaints alleged that Mylan entered into unlawful pay-for-delay agreements with competitors to delay the launch of generic epinephrine auto-injectors. In the absence of competition, Mylan dramatically raised prices and lobbied legislators in states across the country to require schools to have epinephrine auto-injectors on-hand in order to increase sales. They further switched from offering a single EpiPen package to exclusively offering twin packs, forcing consumers to purchase two EpiPens to increase their revenue. 

“Mylan abused its monopoly to jack up prices on its lifesaving, emergency medication. Families were crushed with massive costs while Mylan reaped exorbitant profits. This was corporate greed at its worst, and we’re holding Mylan accountable,” said Attorney General Tong. “We are continuing to push our antitrust case against the generic drug industry to restore free and fair competition to this broken industry and to ensure access to affordable medication.”

"These medications save lives, and low-cost generic alternatives are an essential part of ensuring everyone has access to them," said DCP Commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli. "Actively taking steps to prevent generic alternatives and further profit off consumers who need these medications is not only illegal, it's shameful. Thank you to the Attorney General's office for their work on this important case."

The Connecticut Department of Public Health is proud to be part of this initiative to expand equitable access to lifesaving medication. Severe allergic reactions can happen without warning, and in those moments, access to an EpiPen can mean the difference between life and death.

DPH is supporting the distribution of 10,000 free EpiPens to approximately 30 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) across the state. These centers are pillars of healthcare access in Connecticut, providing essential care to low-income and underserved communities, where patients often face the greatest barriers to obtaining lifesaving medications. 

“Severe allergic reactions can happen in an instant, and no family in Connecticut should have to worry about whether they can afford the medication that could save a life," said DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D. "Placing 10,000 EpiPens in our Federally Qualified Health Centers brings that protection to the people and communities who need it most. I am grateful to the Office of the Attorney General and our health center partners for their shared commitment to health equity and to the well-being of every Connecticut resident.” 

“CHC/ACT is grateful to Attorney General Tong for reaching this settlement. We are additionally grateful to the AG's office and the Department of Public Health for their partnership in helping to get these free epi-pens out to our community health centers and their patients. EpiPens contain a life-saving - yet expensive - medication, and this settlement will help ensure that people across the state have access to it,” said Shawn K. Frick, President/CEO of the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut (CHC/ACT). 

As part of the settlement, Mylan denies any wrongdoing.

In addition to today’s settlement with Mylan, Connecticut’s Attorney General Office is leading a coalition of nearly all states and territories in a series of antitrust cases against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives across the generic drug industry, alleging widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs. 

Attorney General Tong recently announced settlements with Sandoz, Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex and Heritage, and Heritage’s parent company, Emcure, totaling nearly $500 million.

Deputy Associate Attorney General Nicole Demers, Chief of the Antitrust Section assisted the Attorney General in this matter.

Moderator: Senator. The state has enacted significant rules on the activities of the immigrations and customs enforcement in Connecticut. Some of it is being enforced. Some of it is not. No masks, as you know. No arrests at schools, bus stops, houses of worship, and some other places, and no presence in polls on election day. CT Insider reader Mark Etry wants to know simply: Do the candidates support ICE? Yes or no? Please elaborate.

Fazio: We need a common sense policy to public safety and immigration. I think we all can agree, Democrats and Republicans, that we should take criminals off the street, people who are the most dangerous to society. But we also need to stop ICE or anyone else when they're overreaching, when they're violating people's rights. I think that we can protect civil liberties at the same time that we protect public safety. The problem is this: Governor Lamont's policies have gone all the way to undermine public safety, even far to the left of progressive governors like Tim Walz in Minnesota. A couple of years ago, a two-year-old boy in Stamford, Connecticut, Liam Rivera, was beaten and killed by a person in the state illegally who had been previously arrested and sent to jail for assault because of Governor Lamont's 2019 Trust Act, that man was let out on the streets instead of transferred to federal authorities to be removed from our state. That boy might still be alive today if not for that policy. We must use common sense. We must protect against abuses. Against abuses by any authorities or law enforcement, including ICE, and they should be clear and precise in any sort of activity they're doing. At the same time, we need to prioritize taking dangerous people who have been convicted of Class C, D, or E felonies, including manslaughter, including sexual abuse, off our streets. Governor Lamont's law prevents that. I think that is common sense.

Lamont: We get dangerous people off the street. We work with ICE and DEA and FBI. That's one of the reasons we have one of the very safest states in the United States of America. Great policing, community policing. Work with the feds every time it comes to getting dangerous people off the street. I can't believe you're exploiting that one story out of Stanford that has nothing to do with immigration. The difference between you and me, Ryan, is every time you talk about an immigrant, you bring up a criminal alien and a crime. I think about the kids I used to teach at Harding High School. I teach about what we used to call the dreamers, and they are. I think about those parents in Danbury just a few weeks ago when I went through and started rounding up their parents. These are parents dropping their kids off at school. I will do everything I can to keep this state safe, but hell if I'm going to victimize, you know, these poor kids who are just trying to get to school and get by. We used to call them the dreamers. I still call them the dreamers.

Fazio: Listen, Governor, I think that's disingenuous. You just sent a mailer that was talking about the death of a child in order to make your point politically. I mean, here you have a very clear case of a young boy who was killed by someone who was let back out on the streets because of a law that you passed. I simply would say this: We need common sense. I love legal immigration and our legal immigrants in this state, and we have to support them and make the state affordable for them. At the same time, people who commit crimes need to be taken off the state. Governor, I

Lamont: You may love them, but ICE is picking them up. You are guilty until proven innocent. If you look Hispanic, you are gone. That next day in Danbury, there are hundreds of fewer kids who could even go to school. They were so scared. You had students sitting in the classroom with an empty desk to the left, empty desk to the right. Many of the stores on Main Street shut down because people were scared, so you may feel good about the immigrants, but right now ICE is targeting them. They're guilty until proven innocent. It's wrong. It's un-American, and we're going to stand up against it.

Moderator: We do have questions that we got from our from our viewers and readers, and we're going to mix them into some of these questions that we're asking tonight, and I want to start with energy. Everybody wants to see rate cuts, electric rate cuts, but the signs point to electric rate increases. Senator Fazio, in the next few years, Eversource has not had a regular rate increase since 2018. We owe years of storm cleanup back. The favorable millstone contract is coming out is expiring in a couple of years. Public benefits are really only a very small fraction when you take away those contracts. How do you propose to do it? Maria Pacchowski asked that question. She wants to know, and so do we.

Fazio: Well, Maria, we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Connecticut has the fourth highest electric bills in the entire country, and something needs to change. Just a couple of weeks ago, the CEO of Eversource, the largest utility in Connecticut, was bragging to his investors on a conference call that Governor Lamont calls him a friend behind closed doors and guarantees that their rate increase that's proposed will go through after the election, that's just not acceptable. That's the way it's been for the last eight years. Governor Lamont gave Eversource a sweetheart deal in 2024, allowing them to sell their water subsidiary to an unregulated entity, so they can jack up rates without any independent oversight. That means, in addition, that Eversource got billions of dollars extra into their coffers. Not only that, Governor Lamont championed and signed into law bills in 2020, 2021, and 2026 that will increase your public benefits charge and other hidden fees in your electric bill by billions of dollars into the future. Most of those subsidies go to support the profits of private energy corporations like DE Shaw, one of the largest hedge funds in the United States, and Orsted, a multi-billion-dollar international corporation. I do not believe it's right that you should pay higher electric bills to the tune of 1000s of dollars per year in order to support the profits of private multi-billion-dollar energy companies, but Governor Lamont does. I would eliminate all those hidden taxes and fees, cut electric bills by 20% to make the state affordable.

Lamont: Politicians love to make promises they can't keep. You're not eliminating the public benefits charge, Ryan. All you're doing is shifting it over to the backs of the taxpayers. That's no way to get it done. You want to know how we pay for nuclear power? What Dan referred to as that favorable millstone deal? We do that out of the public benefits charge. By the way, that was the first deal we had to do when I came into office. Everybody else was unplugging nuclear power. We doubled down. That's saving us $400 million in. That is what's temporarily gotten rid of the public benefits charge. That's why we're not the third highest. We're the second lowest in all of New England. We're making progress there on our energy bills. And by the way, the water company-that's Pura. They are the regulatory group that takes a look at that. And I thought if you didn't like Eversource so much, you wouldn't want them running the water company as well. So I'm a little confused. It was sold to a not-for-profit. Maybe we need to do some regulatory oversight on that as well. But we are holding EverSource accountable. We are making sure that every dime goes into the efficiency and upgrade of the grid. Thank you.

Fazio: Yes, I think the viewers out there will be very surprised to learn that Governor Lamont's holding EverSource accountable when he has a texting relationship with the CEO, and the CEO says, "Don't leave town until we have our billion-dollar deal finalized. When the CEO of EverSource is bragging to his investors that he'll get his rate increase through after the election is done, if Governor Lamont is in office. Governor Lamont is the one that shifted rates to taxpayers by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of taxpayers for electric bills. We need a change in your time is

Lamont: Just no truth to this at all. I came into office. There was no relationship between state government and the the business and labor and others, I've mended those relationships. I do have a relationship with the business leaders of the state. That does not mean I do not hold them accountable. Look what we did with Eversource. We gave them five different decisions under Amersa Gillette, and they sued us five different times. They said, "Let's get a new pura board in there. We got a new pura board. You approved with them as well, and they sued us again because they didn't like the result. Believe me, we are holding them accountable.

Moderator: Governor, our recent Sacred Heart University WFSB CT Insider poll showed one issue that Democrats on. Affiliated voters and Republicans agreed on data centers. They don't like them, and you signed a bill. I believe it was in 2021 that gave tax breaks to corporate data centers, which could open the door to larger AI data centers being approved in our state, or perhaps getting tax breaks that are unintended. Do you regret signing that bill? Would you have done it?

Lamont: Look, we have not allowed any of those big AI data centers into this state, and I don't think we are going to. They are big energy sucks. The one they wanted to bring in next to Millstone, which is the nuclear power plant, would have used more electricity than all of Southeast Connecticut combined. That would have jacked up electric rates. That would have been a terrible choice for the state. So hold that accountable. Some local businesses do upgrade their IT. You can give them sales tax exemptions. You can say let's take it away. Of course, all the other states do the same thing, so you got to stay competitive. But I think most importantly, people want to make sure we're protecting our kids, and we put in place a bill where we said I'm going to give parents the opportunity to say no to those very addictive algorithms that many of their young kids are hooked on, making sure there's parental control and they can say no and limit that. We also said let's put some guardrails on artificial intelligence. Say those chatbots that are sitting there whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a teenager, sometimes giving them advice that's very dangerous, wrong. So we put that bill in place. We got that through the House and the Senate. Strong bipartisan support of both sides of the aisle. Ryan was an outlier with four other state senators who said, "No, I don't want any of these guardrails on AI. I don't want any of these guardrails on social media. I think that was a terrible mistake.

Fazio: Just last year, Governor Lamont was extolling the virtues of data centers and wanted them to come to Connecticut. He made a speech in Fairfield saying exactly that. He was the one who championed and passed into law a total exemption from sales tax and property taxes for data centers in Connecticut, including one in Windsor that is getting a $17 million taxpayer benefit while only creating five jobs. That's the governor's record. You know that's what he passed into law. You don't get exemptions from sales tax or property taxes. In fact, the governor has raised yours. But because of Governor Lamont's policies, data centers now have eligibility for total tax exemptions from sales tax or property tax. I've been a champion of regulating social media for people under the age of 18. The first bill that I co-authored and passed into law was doing exactly that, taking some of the social media out of schools, and that part of the bill I supported. Governor Lamont gave data centers a tax break. I've been trying to take it away as governor. I'll do it,

Moderator: Governor Lamont, property taxes affect pretty much every resident and business owner in the state, and for years we've been talking about reform and reducing them, but nothing seems to happen. Why is that, and what is your plan?

Lamont: Let me tell you what we've done first of all, because plans are easy. Let's see what you've been able to execute. We flat funded municipal aid. We flat-funded the schools for many years during the 2010s when we were going from deficit to deficit. We have not done that. We've had the biggest increase in funding for education. We doubled the amount of funding for special education. The other things we've done for our schools: increased municipal aid along a pilot, almost doing that. Doing what we can to help the mayors and first electmen get by. I didn't get help from Ryan on that. He would have just left it on the laps of the first elected. You would have seen their property taxes go up more. But as I said before, it's going to take more than just more subsidies from the state to help our municipalities get go forward. You know, I've said you know very clearly. Let me help you manage yourselves, your back office. Ways we can save some money on the backside. Maybe you don't all need your own purchasing. Maybe you don't need your own building. Maybe you don't all need your own town planner. Maybe there's ways you can share some of those services that could save you a heck of a lot of money. And in the meantime, we've also taken the property tax credit. That's a way that we can help out people immediately. We've increased that by 50 percent. We expanded that to more people, especially for seniors, especially for folks disabled veterans. Ryan was not there for that vote. It's a really important vote.

Fazio: Governor, the first time you ran for governor, you promised to cut property taxes. Those are your words, not mine. Fast forward eight years later, property taxes are up 40 percent or more in many towns or cities. For many of our residents, it feels like a second mortgage, and for people who are renters, they're eating those costs in their rent from their landlords too. Governor Lamont signed into law over 105 new laws with new unfunded mandates, costs being imposed on our towns and cities, which drive up their property taxes. For the first seven years that Governor Lamont was in office, he flat-funded education funding to the point that it declined after adjusting for inflation. I proposed an alternative budget this year that increased the education funding by 200 million dollars, but more importantly, I'll put in place property tax reforms and a property tax cap that cuts the unfunded mandates those costs by hundredths and caps property taxes into the future. Other states have done it, including Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Senator, we can do it too.

they've been up for like 3 months it's really embarrassing

Moderator: Senator Fazio, you have said on the campaign trail and also in the state legislature that the president's foreign policy has nothing to do with Connecticut. But the reality, a lot of people will disagree with that-that high tariffs, the war in Iran, and are having a financial impact on the pocketbooks of not only Connecticut residents but residents across the country. In light of this, do you support President Trump's foreign policy?

Fazio: I oppose the war in Iran. I've said it repeatedly. I'm more of a non-interventionist. I actually respect in 2006 when Ned Lamont ran for the Senate in opposition to the Iraq War. I think he was right at the time, and I've been critical of the decision to go into Iran. The issue here is that this election is about Connecticut and policy decisions made by the leadership of our state government, and the leaders of our state government have a responsibility to act and do what they can in order to provide relief when a problem arises, when a mistake is made. I've called for a gas tax holiday immediately to provide 25 cents per gallon of relief to you at the pump. Governor Lamont supported a gas tax holiday four years ago when gas tax prices were high, but he's opposing it now. When we have a way to provide relief, sometimes hundreds of dollars of relief to you and your family per month, it would be paid for because there is an existing surplus in the special transportation fund. So my question to Governor Lamont is, what are you going to do about it? Why haven't you supported a gas tax holiday, which several Democrats and Republicans have shown support for, that would save the viewers 25 cents per gallon immediately in Connecticut, and would be fully financed for six months or more by the existing balances in the special transportation fund? You supported it four years ago. Why don't you support it now?

Lamont: We'd leave a hole in the budget. I came into office. There was nothing in that special transportation fund, and the Trump Department of Transportation said you're going to get no support, Connecticut, unless you do it. I got no support from the legislature. We've got a special transportation fund. That's how we pay for our roads and bridges. By the way, you can't mumble when it comes to Donald Trump. You seem to think that Washington is like Las Vegas. Everything that happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. Everything that happens in Washington impacts you every day. When the price of gasoline goes up $1.75 a gallon, that's costing our families say $20 a week. I appreciate 25 cents. We'll figure out how to pay for it later. That's just the type of political thinking that got this state into trouble. Look what they're doing on diesel. Look what they're doing on home heating oil. That's going to double the price for you. There we stepped in because we put in place a Trump $500 million fund just to make up for some of those losses there. You didn't support that, but I'm going to make sure you're able to heat your home this winter.

Fazio: Governor Lamont is right that families are struggling with high energy costs, but what are we going to do about it? There is an opportunity right now to cut people's gas prices at the pump by 25 cents per gallon. That's potentially hundreds of dollars per month for some families. It would be fully financed because the cost of that is just over $100 million, but the existing surplus in the special transportation fund is $600 million. So we have a way to pay for it. You supported it four years ago. Why won't you support it now when people are in need?

Lamont: Politicians have got to look beyond the next election. You got to think about what it's going to take to fix our roads and bridges and how you pay for it. I've been very clear with the legislature. You want a cut in the gas tax? Tell me how you're going to pay for it. Oh, I'll borrow the money now. I'll take it out of surplus, and we'll figure out how to pay for it tomorrow. That's just the type of mentality that got this state into a problem over the last 20 years. That's just why we lurch from deficit to deficit and tax increase to tax increase. I'm not going to let that happen again.

Local guy near Norwalk here. Shellfishing info in this state is scattered across a dozen town sites and PDFs, so I put it all in one place: https://soundclamstatus.com

It covers the 13 CT shellfishing areas from Greenwich to Stonington (plus the Long Island North Shore): tap-to-call hotlines, permit fees, limits, seasons, rain-closure rules and tides, each linked to its official source. Only three towns post status online. When one of them has posted an area open in the last 36 hours, the site says "posted open [date], call to confirm". Otherwise it just says "Call hotline". Always call the hotline before you harvest.

It's free to use, no paywall or signup required (a few labeled local-sponsor spots help cover costs, and they never affect status). There's also an optional Thursday weekend-report email.

Where info was missing I wrote "call the Town Clerk" instead of guessing. If you spot something wrong for your town, let me know and I'll fix it.

Bad wreck, backed up for miles!

maybe a weird ask but my husband and I have 2 extra tickets to the wolf pack game tonight (10/23) and we can't seem to find any interest in our small circle of friends/family so I offer this up to you, redditors. If anyone is free tonight and want to go to a hockey game, let me know! Bonus points if you are close in age (late 30s) and kinda nerdy (board games and or video game fans) and looking to make new friends!

Saw this on the green this morning. I'd like to have something witty to say, but I'm just pissed off. I've disagreed with political signs before, but the rage I felt when I saw that someone put up this kind of hate in my backyard...

Just a reminder that I’m still collecting stuffed animals for the Hartford Wolf Pack Teddy Bear Toss. I set up an Amazon Registry of stuffed animals. If you buy from the registry they are sent directly to me. Here’s the link:

Check out this Gift List I just created. https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/I2RVI2A12R8V?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_ggr-subnav-share_951H96S4125HM0P1EQYZ&language=en-US

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[the auto transcription probably got a lot of the spellings of names wrong]

Moderate: Governor, we've seen a sort of unfolding scandal of mismanagement at CSCU, the state university system, involving Chancellor, former Chancellor Terrence Chang, Zolma Toro, the CCSU president John Maduco, and others. Your deputy budget chief was indicted and convicted of 21 corruption charges. You let the crisis between Eversource and I think pure Melissa Gillette go for a couple of years before you took care of it. How do you respond to the? No one is implicating you personally by any means. How do you respond though to charges that you're not minding the store

Lamont: We hold people accountable, and I have zero tolerance for any type of malfeasance out there. You start out with the CSU system. Let's pull the lens back for just one second, Dan. We have the biggest application pool, the biggest freshman class at Eastern we've ever had before. Our CSU system is strong. Our community colleges, which are an elevator of opportunity for young people in this state, have more people today than every time since COVID, and they're growing all the time. These are these are great systems making a difference. There were some leadership issues there. You know what I do when I see a leadership issue? I make a change, and we've made a change. There was a guy there that was accused of some things. He's gone. I don't think they took it up the flagpole and dealt with it in an officious way. They're gone as well. But I want you to know that compared to where the state was 15, 20 years ago with the nickname "Corupt-i-Cut, Connecticut's in a very different place. I don't need people bad mouthing this state. I need you to know I have zero tolerance to this. Anytime I see something wrong, I go after it and I hit it hard.

Fazio: Governor Lamont did call Connecticut corrupticut when he first ran for office. The problem is that eight years later, corruption has flourished on his watch. There's been millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars stolen by malfeasance and corruption in this state government, and people simply haven't been held accountable. The problems in the CSCU system are precisely because the governor didn't hold them accountable. When Terrence Chang was found to have stolen 10s of 1000s of dollars from the taxpayer as the leader of CSCU, Governor Lamont called it small ball. Why would you call that small ball? So it's no surprise that we've seen scandal after scandal within the CSCU system in the years since because the governor set the tone that people do not get held accountable. Terence Chang was given a no-show job for the following two years after he was caught getting paid $440,000 per year. If you watching steal 10s of 1000s of dollars per year, will you get a no-show job paying $440,000 per year? Will that happen on Governor Lamont's watch, Senator Foggia. Thank

Lamont: Terrence Chang spent too much on his credit card, over $45 for a number of steak dinners. Donald Trump has just received a $450 million. Our jet is a gift from the Qataris. You got to keep some perspective here. What we're doing right now, we had people on the CSU board. One of them was named Erin Stewart, who put $450,000 in charges on her card. The trick in life is when you see something going wrong, go after them, hold them accountable, and make the change. That's what we've done.

Fazio: Listen, I think that when you have leaders in state government stealing 10s of 1000s of dollars from taxpayers, when you have Costa Diamantis fleeing the country after he got a promotion from Governor Lamont, when you have a sitting state senator who got millions of dollars and stole it and is now being investigated by the FBI, and when I introduce reforms that every dollar of state government needs to be claimed and vetted for conflicts of interest. Governor Lamont and the legislature oppose those reforms. Again, the buck stops somewhere. That money means something to the taxpayers who are being crushed.

Lamont: I supported those reforms. I told the legislature I'm going to veto it unless these earmark reforms are real. And Costa Diamondis, I didn't hire him, but I fired him.

Fazio: The requirement that you vet the board of directors of these organizations for conflicts of interest that did not pass. You opposed that. The requirement that they give all their financial statements before they get money, you did not support that. It did not pass. We did not go far enough, not at all.

Simple ask: What are the best coffee roasters in the state? I’ve recently moved to CT and I’m fully committed to supporting local businesses in all areas I can.

The clone trooper and other star wars thing have been there since 2019, so I felt those deserved to stay, but this underpass has gotten out of control the past year with the usual unfunny imagery and words as well as insults and slurs. Town hasn't painted it in over 6 years.

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Earlier this month, Mohegan Sun and the Mohegan Tribe received the 2026 Together, We Can Innovation Award at the annual Governor's Celebration.

They were recognized for the work they do with the Governor's Prevention Partnership to prevent underage drinking and substance use. 

Mohegan Sun's advocacy work also goes beyond Connecticut. 

Earlier this month, Mohegan Sun Chairwoman Beth Regan delivered the invocation at a CADCA’s Drug-Free Kids Dinner in Washington, D.C.

Ever dreamed of seeing a DIY punk and metal show on the best holiday of the year? Looking for an excuse to wear a great costume in a mosh pit? Or do you just want a fun event where you can hang out and drink beer on Halloween?

My band made this event for you! We are bringing out local hardcore legends Trench and we are excited to have Boston punk band Andro Queen and nu metal band Payphone Confession, also from Boston.

We’re collaborating with local designer Design by Field to bring in several art vendors with a spooky/punk theme.

You can buy tickets in advance here! This is our 2nd annual Halloween show and last year sold out. We are in a larger space this year so the sky is the limit! Come hang!!