Stockholders Should Know How Animals Suffer in Company's Labs, Group Says
For Immediate Releae:
April 27, 2011
Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
Dallas -- Holding posters depicting a sickly, caged rabbit with a capsule containing hundreds of ticks attached to her body, PETA members will converge outside Pfizer's annual meeting at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel on Thursday. Inside the meeting, a representative of PETA, which owns shares of the pharmaceutical giant, will present a shareholder resolution demanding that Pfizer disclose the number of animals it experiments on each year, the nature of the experiments, and what steps the company is taking to comply with the minimal animal welfare regulations that it has repeatedly violated.
When: Thursday, April 28, 7:30 a.m.
Where: Renaissance Dallas Hotel, 2222 Stemmons Fwy., Dallas
Pfizer had contracted with North Carolina–based animal testing company Professional Laboratory and Research Services, Inc., (PLRS) until the facility was closed following a PETA 2010 undercover investigation. Among PETA's findings were an inadequately anesthetized dog who struggled and whimpered in pain while an untrained worker extracted his tooth with pliers; cats and dogs with oozing wounds, abscessed teeth, parasite infestations, bloody feces, hematomas, and infections; a worker who repeatedly tried to rip out a cat's nails; and universally filthy conditions. A criminal investigation of PLRS is ongoing.
"Pfizer's shareholders have a right to know what happens to the tens of thousands of animals their company poisons and kills," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "We're demanding that Pfizer come clean and explain what—if any—steps it's taking to alleviate the animal suffering it causes on a massive scale."
PETA's shareholder resolution is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.