Presented To
Merck & Company Board of Directors

Annual Shareholder Meeting
April 22^nd, 2003

Statement to the Board of Directors
From Children of God for Life

From all walks of life in all fifty states they come: parents, medical professionals, educators, clergy, military, pro-life and professional organizations, Catholic - Christian - Jew - Islamic.

They compare what you are doing to acts of terrorism against the helpless, the defenseless, the sick and the vulnerable.

They liken the use of aborted fetal cell lines in research and medical treatments to acts of cannibalism and the horrors of the Holocaust.

They are not anti-vaccine. They only wish to protect the health and safety of their patients and families, without violating their moral or religious beliefs. They wait in great anguish for you to make your single doses of Attenuvax and Mumpsvax available again, refusing to use your tainted MMR II or any vaccine that is propagated on aborted fetal cell lines.

Certainly, abortion is an acutely painful, controversial, and bitterly divisive issue. Any manufacturer that deliberately and needlessly chooses to utilize abortion-derived cell lines causes great hardship for thousands, if not millions, of people worldwide by excluding a large number of them from the benefits of preventative medicine.  Whether by intent or indifference, such action constitutes an attempt to force the acceptance of fetal exploitation.

At present, a growing number of the population perceives that Merck is demonstrating a glaring lack of social responsibility, human decency and reasonable, ethical business practices.  Their only recourse is to boycott all of your products, not just those utilizing aborted fetal cell lines.

You have the ability, the resources and the talent to truly be a leader in the research world by making ethically produced vaccines available to the public – to rise above the harsh public criticism and to stand behind your own promises made last July to all shareholders: 

“Nothing is more important to Merck than adhering to the highest ethical standards in all that we do.”

In concluding that same shareholder letter, Mr. Raymond Gilmartin stated:

“We have always sought to do the right thing for the right reasons.”

 Distinguished Members of the Board, this is the right thing – this is the right reason.

 Over 475,000 Americans and Twenty-Six Foreign Countries Beseech You:

Please End This Unnecessary and Unethical Practice!