Vasella To Animal Rights Groups: Dialogue, Not Crime
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 21st, 2009 // 7:25 am
Animal rights activists regularly go after the pharmaceutical industry, but they made big headlines last summer when some visited the hometown of Novartis ceo Dan Vasella and painted “murderer” on the church, desecrated the graves of his sister and parents, and set fire to his Austrian vacation home. Vasella spoke with USA Today about the episode and his reaction.
USA Today: Aren’t you helping activists by giving them the soapbox they desire?
Vasella: I don’t believe so. It’s my duty as a citizen to speak up when illegal actions take place. Suffering in silence doesn’t help anybody. You have to stand up. You have to fight for something. If everyone remained silent, then the people who are violent would prevail.
USA Today: Aren’t you putting a bull’s-eye on Novartis?
Vasella: No. If others duck to stay off the radar, that’s a bad recipe.
USA Today: Ceo’s in (various) industries say they get anonymous threats…Should they go public?
Vasella: The general advice that security departments give is: Don’t respond, don’t react, and we’ll handle it…My advice to others is to be cool and react with logic, be prudent, take precautions, but do not panic and be afraid. Be willing to engage if they have a point, if it’s appropriate…But sometimes their objective is to create fear and uncertainty, a terroristic attempt at psychological tension.
USA Today: If you were to do it over again, would you do anything differently?
Vasella: I would go public earlier, immediately. We should have done more to engage politicians and the press in making them aware what was going on, because we need the public to understand.
USA Today: Has your response done anything to stop the behavior of your antagonists?
Vasella: It’s calm right now, but I don’t think that they have changed in any way their fundamental attitude and actions…Changing laws is a multiyear process, but we have never encountered so much support as now.
USA Today: If CEOs went more on the offensive, would they have to worry about the safety of themselves and family?
Vasella: I don’t. There was a period when I was more alert, a normal reaction. Now we are conducting our lives as we used to. Of course, there are security measures that have been taken, but you can never protect everything.
USA Today: If you were the leader of the animal rights group, what would you do differently to get your point across and cause change?
Vasella: The only way to proceed is to engage in dialogue…Visit their websites, and you’ll understand what’s going on. They can’t make any points because the points they make are unacceptable from all points of view. They blackmail and extort. Nobody could proceed this way.
anonymous patient
While I do not condone what has happened to Dan Vasella, I find it ironic that he finds it is duty to speak up when illegal actions take place.
1.) whistleblower law suit - Novartis Biostatician cooked the books trying to hide the cardio toxicity profile of the “son of Gleevec” - last count 29 cardiac deaths reported to the FDA, data that doesn’t seem to make it into clinical trial results….
2.) corrupting doctors and researchers with bogus clinicla trial scams that disrupt research from other companies and prevents patients from accessing other “non Novartis” drugs.
3.) New Nilotinib data in head-to-head trial with Gleevec shows that , all of a sudden Gleevec performs much worst than ever reported. Which trial data is to be believed?
4.) “Buying” global patient groups - sickening actually how patients can sell one another out for trips to exotic locations once a year…
The list goes on…
So, I hope the animal rights activist stop their illegal behavior, and do things the right way. That is the only point I will agree with Dan Vasella on. Dialogue is key. The problem with Dan is that the only answer is his answer, which of course isn’t the right answer…Dialogue is a two way street, you have to give a little to get a little. Dan, you seem to have forgotten that.
riv
Good point anonymous patient. The official animal rights groups need to clean up their act.
I long ago tuned them out for the reasons you bring, but also because they have no problem treating women worse than animals, see P*TA’s ads. And as I’ve observed covering their events, after the rally it’s pizza and p*rn. Without fail.
john649
AR groups have been TALKING FOR YEARS and still the animals are being tortured!!!!
this article is such a crock!! This guy makes millions from torturing animals and now he’s scratching his head wondering why in the world his silent consent to abuse animals is coming back to haunt him.
Please, give me break!!
no sympathy here for a barbarian who takes innocent animals and makes tons of money from them.
A nonie mouse
These “Animal Rights” Terrorists should all wind up in prison. If you disagree with the laws requiring animal testing of pharmaceuticals, you should work to change them within the system. Spend some of your creativity on that. Or, better yet, go to school and invent ways to evaluate potential drugs without animals.
And “Anonymous patient” - you missed the point of what he was saying. If you disagree, dialogue is critical. You have that opportunity at the FDA hearings, product liability hearings, etc. But terrorism is never the answer.
anonymous patient
Hey Nonie Mouse,
I didn’t miss the point at all. I do not agree with the terrorists approach of the animal rights people at all.
I merely state that Dan shouldn’t be saying he has to stand up and speak out when people act illegal, when people at his own company are behaving very badly themselves.
Their own biostatician was fired for blowing the whistle on the data base being tampered with to “hide” the cardio toxicity results of their clinical trial…And the other things written.
How can someone claim they stand for justice when they mock it all the time….
I believe in Dialogue, you should try talking with Dan. He doesn’t listen…
He should retire, I think he’s made enough millions now.
pharmavet
My first encounter with the animal rights terrorists was on my first visit to the Boots Company in Nottingham. Somehow they managed to put up a banner across the store entrance that said “Boots Murders Beagles’ or some such facsimile. When I visited the animal testing facility it was very difficult to find the location, which was by design. When I was in grad school we practiced responsible conduct of research, which was a detailed protocol which specified how animals were to be maintained and treated. I agree, these people should be imprisoned. Unfortunately, animals are only legally considered as property in the US, so when the PETA people “rescue” the lab animals, it is only treated as a property crime.
JC
Aren’t humans amazing Animals? They kill wildlife - birds, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice and foxes by the million in order to protect their domestic animals and their feed.
Then they kill domestic animals by the billion and eat them. This in turn kills people by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - - health conditions like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.
So then humans spend billions of dollars torturing and killing millions of more animals to look for cures for these diseases.
Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.
Meanwhile, few people recognize the absurdity of humans, who kill so easily and violently, and once a year send out cards praying for “Peace on Earth.”
~Revised Preface to Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm by C. David Coates~
Check out this informative and inspiring video on why people choose vegan: http://veganvideo.org/
Also see Gary Yourofsky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bagt5L9wXGo