 |
|
| White lab mouse. © istock.com |
|
by Rebecca Simmons
This past spring, The HSUS took the issue of Allergan's controversial and lethal animal testing of Botox® straight to the company's shareholders—and scored a symbolic victory for animals.
As part of a multi-year shareholder advocacy strategy designed to pressure Allergan to develop alternatives to animal testing, The HSUS, with the Calvert Asset Management Company, Inc, introduced a shareholder resolution at Allergan's annual meeting on May 6.
The goal of the strategy's first year was for the percentage of shareholders voting for the resolution to exceed the minimum percentage of favorable votes needed—3 percent—in order to reintroduce the shareholder resolution the following year. Since most shareholders typically sign over their vote to the 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 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.
When the vote totals became public on August 7, the resolution totaled in at 5.7 percent of the votes, comfortably exceeding the 3 percent threshold.
The HSUS plans to work with Calvert and others to re-introduce the resolution at Allergan's 2009 annual meeting. If the second-year minimum threshold for approval (6 percent) is met or exceeded, the resolution will, according to company rules, be permitted to be re-introduced in 2010. After 2009, a vote of 10 percent is needed to continue submitting the resolution each year.
The resolution urges Allergen to provide publicly available annual updates on the company's efforts to eliminate the controversial Lethal Dose 50 Percent (LD50) test and replace it with a non-animal alternative. Allergan currently uses the test to assess the potency of batches of Botox and Botox® Cosmetic. When Botox is injected into animals, the drug's active ingredient—the same nerve toxin that causes food poisoning—can cause paralysis and prolonged suffering before death, which results 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' vice president for animal research issues. "Consumers demand good corporate stewardship and transparency when it comes to animal welfare."
