Merck Attempts To Hide Important Investment Facts From Shareholder Proxy Vote

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 27, 2003

Merck Attempts to Hide Important Investment Facts From Shareholder Proxy Vote

Washington, DC – “It is clear from their actions, that Merck does not want their stockholders to know the truth about how they conduct their business,” said Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (HLI), a Merck & Co. stockholder.  “If this is ‘ordinary business’ as Merck claims, then they wouldn’t have petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to remove the indicting language from our stockholder proposal.”

Working with Children of God for Life and Pro Vita Advisors, HLI drafted Stockholder Proposal No. 7 which made clear -despite claims of employing, “the highest standards of ethics and integrity,” in its business practices-that Merck & Co. continues to use aborted fetal cell lines in the creation of certain vaccines. The original resolution sought to educate investors to potential business and financial repercussions related to the continued use of these cell lines.  Merck sought to hide from investors that:

• Merck faces an organized boycott of all Merck products because aborted fetal cell lines are used in vaccines;
• The Catholic Medical Association (CMA) passed a resolution to use alternatives to Merck’s and other drug companies vaccines that are cultivated from aborted fetal cell lines;
• Pro Vita Advisors, an investment counseling organization, advises investors to divest their Merck stock because of its continued use of aborted fetal cell lines

In a five-page letter, Merck originally pleaded with the SEC to keep the entire resolution off the company’s proxy vote, but failed at that effort.  Merck did succeed, however, in convincing the SEC to remove the language that would have informed voters of these potential risks.  Merck has refused to acknowledge that they profit from the destruction of human life despite the fact that $34.6 million of their $7.2 billion net income for 2002 was from viral vaccine sales.

Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, stated, “We believe stockholders have a right to know these types of details about a company in which they are investing.  If that company is subject to boycotts, investment warnings and resolutions like the one from the CMA, it could suffer a severe loss in sales and devaluation in stock.”

To view the Merck Prox:  http://www.merck.com/finance/proxy/pr2003/proposal_4.html