Shareholder Campaign > Schering Plough

Schering-Plough markets a wide range of prescription pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter consumer health care products, and animal health care products. Government regulations require a certain amount of animal testing for pharmaceuticals, but companies are afforded flexibility in choosing the tests that they use to establish the safety and effectiveness of new products.

PETA’s “Give the Animals 5” Campaign calls on companies to abandon five crude and cruel animal tests, replacing them with state-of-the-art and scientifically valid non-animal methods that are already in use in other countries. With the help of PETA supporters who hold stock in Schering-Plough, a resolution was filed in the fall of 2004, calling on the company to do the following:

Commit specifically to using only non-animal methods for assessing skin corrosion, skin irritation, skin absorption, phototoxicity, and pyrogenicity
Confirm that it is in the company’s best interests to commit to replacing animal-based tests with non-animal methods
Petition the relevant regulatory agencies requiring safety testing for the company’s products to accept as total replacements for animal-based methods those approved non-animal methods described above, along with any others currently used and accepted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other developed countries

Despite its progressively worded “Animal Care and Use Policy,” Schering-Plough took a position in opposition to our shareholder resolution and sought permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the agency responsible for administering federal securities laws in the U.S.—to exclude our resolution from its proxy statement, arguing that it dealt with ordinary business matters that are not subject to a vote by stockholders. The SEC staff did not concur with any of the company’s arguments and ordered Schering-Plough to publish the PETA-sponsored resolution in its shareholder proxy materials.

Subsequent discussions between Schering-Plough executives and PETA’s science advisors led to a commitment by the company to “conduct an interactive dialogue with [PETA] over the next 12 months in a good-faith manner intended to cover the items raised [by PETA].” Items for discussion will include the following:

Information about the company’s use of animal testing for the five health effects outlined in the resolution
The company’s rationale for not using a non-animal approach for any of the five health effects
A request by a PETA-led coalition of animal protection organizations for the opportunity to observe an international policy forum on pharmaceutical testing and regulation

In light of Schering-Plough’s willingness to engage in a constructive and ongoing dialogue about these issues, PETA voluntarily withdrew its shareholder resolution.

Wyeth >