Mylan® and Disney joined forces to educate, protect and better serve the food allergic community. If you are on social media you might have read some tweets or posts earlier this week from some bloggers attending a Mylan Bloggers Summit where the makers of the EpiPen® epinephrine auto-injector rolled out their new initiative: EpiPen® On Location™ and asked for our feedback about educational programs and materials. Many companies approach the food allergy blogging community to introduce their new products, old products, initiatives and programs with hopes bloggers will be inspired to write about them. In my world, this is a great thing since my goal is to talk food allergy as much as possible while sharing items that might make someone else’s quality of life better. I LOVE hearing about possible solutions from everyone so I can share! I was grateful to be invited to hear about how Disney maintains EpiPens® at their parks, is updating their menus and kitchen policy to address special diets while raising awareness with Mylan® via three new celebrity videos. NOTE: Make sure you check out my disclosure at the end of this blog.
This excites me to no end for reasons unseen: when a large, global and influential company like Disney takes notice of food allergies and makes it a priority–other companies just might pay attention! From my perspective, I would love to see AMC Theaters, Sports Leagues and other entertainment venues follow suit. This is BIG in my world. Disney’s choice to partner with Mylan® directs attention to our cause and I plan on leveraging that with my local businesses.
The EpiPen® On Location™ program is a big giant call to action for those with life threatening food allergies to learn about their disease and be prepared. Chef and Restaurant owner Amanda Freitag, Project Runway judge and Marie Claire Creative Director Nina Garcia and Girl Meets World child actor Auggie Maturo all share their food allergy stories on videos at the EpiPen® On Location™ website. Their hope is to inspire and reach out to those who are not as educated as they should be, by using their celebrity status. Mylan is also asking people to enter a contest to win a Walt Disney World Resort vacation by sharing these videos. You’ll read about our meeting Auggie and his mother later this week.
The summit held at the Disneyland resort in California and we met executive Chef Bill and were able to check out a few allergen menus and provide feedback. They seem to be working hard to accommodate food allergies. We also visited the first aid station to view the signs indicating that yes, indeed, EpiPens® were on site! Wow, we have come a long way since my son’s first Disneyland visit when he was seven years old.
There was an interesting presentation of the Epipen4Schools program and a review of a study that looked at the currentEpiPens® usage of participants in this program. I was familiar with this information since I used some of these stats during my recent legislative testimony in the Nevada State Legislature, but it was important to hear more details from the study’s author. I am very biased towards this free program that has given free EpiPens® to over 32,000 schools! This program saved several lives in Nevada and I couldn’t be any more grateful for it.
The summit was lovely, needless-to-say, since it was located in the Happiest Place on Earth and who doesn’t enjoy bumping into Pluto or Goofy while hanging out with fellow bloggers! We were able to stay in the park after our work was complete and I couldn’t have been more pleased making my purchase of cotton candy!
Disclosure: being a huge fan of the Be Who You are concept, I want to make sure that you see my disclosure. As always, I only write about things that I believe might make a difference in our world. Somethings that I love, you may hate and things you can’t stand, I might be wild about. My hope is for all of us to find solutions. Here is the legal stuff that complies with the FTC Disclosures…”I attended the Mylan Blogger Summit meeting. Mylan paid for all of my travel expenses and for my Disneyland® Resort park ticket in exchange for my evaluation and feedback on information presented during the meeting. All comments made by me about EpiPen® (epinephrine injection) Auto-injector, Mylan and/or Mylan Blogger Summit are at my own discretion and based on my own opinion.”
Bravo to both Mylan and Disney for working together!
To the rest of America: please notice that Disney recognizes the importance of and the economic impact of serving guests with life threatening allergies, maybe you can take a closer look too?
One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
This is great that Mylan and Disney are teaming up to help prevent food allergies.
This really says quite a bit about food allergies being recognized as main stream!