Today’s news about the targeting of GSK shareholders by Campaign Against HLS (Who? Seems SHAC has disappeared) has rightly focused on some salient points, namely the illegitimacy of these tactics and the abuse of shareholders’ information.
However, I also saw a fascinating quote in The Guardian from other ‘animal rights activists’;
Privately, animal rights activists are sceptical that an individual or a grassroots organisation would have the resources to send the letter to 170,000 shareholders or publish addresses online.
The Guardian, ‘Animal rights activists tell drug firm’s small investors to sell up or else’, 9th May 2006
This is the only acknowledgement I’ve yet seen of an important practical consideration. Without disparaging the concerns of those few people who have been unfortunate enough to receive a letter, a quick totting up of the figures (on the back of a fag packet if I smoked, but in these modern times actually done on my mobile) shows what a desperate, and pathetic, attempt this was to grab a few media headlines.
CAHLS has threatened to write to all of the 167,000 individual GSK shareholders (see The FT, ‘GSK says investors targeted by extremists’, 9th May 2006) will receive a letter from them within two weeks. This would cost a huge sum of money – even if we’re generous in our calculations!
Even if CAHLS:
1. Hand-delivers half of the letters to keep costs down (unlikely because (i) there really aren’t enough activists willing to cross the line into illegal action to deliver 83,500 overnight and (ii) it would be risky hand-delivering letters, someone would be bound to see and then identify the miscreants).
2. Uses 2nd class stamps (a bad idea in light of their self-imposed, two-week deadline and the Post Office’s track record on deliveries).
3. Made their activists bring their own pen and paper, rather than the group buying envelopes etc.
83,500 letters @ 23p each = £19,205
Chances of a new, grassroots organisation having £20k for any sort of campaign? Zero.
Chances of an established group secretly funding a £20k hate-mail campaign in light of legislation changes? Slim to none, you’d hope.
This seems like the last gasping breaths of the opponents of HLS who are not only in denial about their abject failure, but are drawing attention to it with their ludicrous activities…
I’ll be genuinely surprised if more than a handful more letters are delivered – in two weeks time the activists really are going to be looking foolish when their threat is shown to be utterly empty (similar to the ALF threatening anyone connected to Oxford Uni including students… a threat that was quietly retracted and has since been removed from the press release on their website).
The final sting in the tail is that GSK has categorically stated that they will continue to use HLS’ services; the media coverage has been overwhelmingly sympathetic to GSK and supportive of the letter recipients; and the public is unintimidated by these histrionics as shown by comments after a BBC online News article:
Added: Tuesday, 9 May, 2006, 11:14 GMT 12:14 UK
I’m not a shareholder but would greatly like to buy shares in GSK. That would be a big kick in the teeth for the animal rights lunatics, and the best way to deal with their threats. Long live scientific research!
Matthew, TruroAdded: Tuesday, 9 May, 2006, 10:48 GMT 11:48 UK
I see a good investment opportunity. Share prices will drop for now but this is a temporary blip… eventually this will all die down and the share prices will sky rocket. I myself have slowly been buying shares as the price has been creeping down. I am also in total support of animal testing.
S M, LondonAdded: Tuesday, 9 May, 2006, 10:38 GMT 11:38 UK
Here’s a question for the extremists - I just collected my dog from the vet where he spent a week being treated for life threatening gastric enteritis; presumably the drugs he received were tested at some point, and on other dogs. Was that OK? Should I have let him die in agony rather than use such pernicious stuff?
sue, ukBBC News online, ‘Glaxo investors get threat letter’ (comments), 9th May 2006
The extremists have utterly failed in their objective: GSK’s share price was has gone up by 18p over the day to close at £15.57 on the LSE; so anyone who has been targeted will have no problem getting rid of their stock – in the unlikely event that they want to!
