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| Botox testing can cause paralysis and prolonged suffering before death from suffocation. © iStock.com |
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In its ongoing campaign to end the painful deaths of thousands of mice used each year to test the popular anti-wrinkle product Botox®, The Humane Society of the United States has gotten one step closer to its goal.
Voting Victory
As part of a multi-year shareholder strategy designed to pressure Allergan to rapidly develop alternatives to animal testing, The HSUS, with the Calvert Asset Management Company, Inc, introduced a shareholder resolution for a vote at Allergan's annual meeting on April 30.
The results of the vote—released on August 10—revealed that an increasing number of shareholders agree that Allergan should pursue humane testing alternatives.
In addition, for the second year in a row, the percentage of shareholders voting in favor of the resolution exceeded the minimum percentage of votes required to reintroduce the resolution for a shareholder vote the following year.
This year, 8.4 percent of shareholders—16,971,874 people—voted in favor of the resolution. Only 6 percent of the shareholder vote was needed to allow The HSUS to resubmit the resolution in 2010.
In 2008, 5.7 percent of the shareholders voted for the resolution, comfortably exceeding the 3 percent threshold needed.
Shrewd Strategy
Since most shareholders typically sign over their vote to Allergan's board of directors (essentially allowing the board to make the decision for them), and since the board of directors typically votes against resolutions, the percentage of favorable votes for such resolutions is usually well below the 50 percent majority needed for a resolution to pass.
Nevertheless, resolutions are significant because they serve to raise awareness of the issue among shareholders and boards, while placing increasing pressure on the company to resolve the issue.
The HSUS plans to work with Calvert and others to re-introduce the resolution for Allergan's 2010 annual meeting. If the third-year minimum threshold for approval (10 percent) is met or exceeded, the resolution will, according to company rules, be permitted to be re-introduced in 2011. Afterwards, a vote of 10 percent is needed each year to continue submitting the resolution.
Dying for Botox
The resolution urges Allergan to provide publicly available annual updates on the company's efforts to eliminate the controversial LD50 (Lethal Dose 50 Percent ) test and replace it with a non-animal alternative. Allergan currently uses the test to assess the potency of every batch of Botox and Botox® Cosmetic.
When Botox's active ingredient —the same nerve toxin that causes food poisoning— is injected into animals, it can cause paralysis and prolonged suffering before death from suffocation. Allergan uses the LD50 test to find the minimum amount of the toxin that will kill 50 percent of a test group of mice within 3 to 4 days.
"Allergan must join the twenty-first century and phase out the killing of animals in the testing of Botox," said Martin Stephens, The HSUS's vice president for animal research issues. "Consumers demand good corporate stewardship and transparency when it comes to animal welfare."
What You Can Do
- Contact Allergan and ask them to stop using animals to test Botox
- If you are an Allergan shareholder, vote in favor of The HSUS's 2010 resolution. Urge others who hold stock in Allergan to do the same.
- Consider not using Botox until animals are no longer used to test every batch.
