Shareholder Campaign: Medtronic

Medtronic is one of the top manufacturers of medical devices in the world, marketing a range of products that includes cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators, valves, stents, and insulin pumps. Government regulations require a certain amount of animal testing for medical products, but companies are afforded some flexibility to choose which tests they will use to establish the safety and effectiveness of new products.

PETA's "Give the Animals 5" Campaign calls on companies to abandon five crude and cruel animal tests and replace them with state-of-the-art and scientifically valid non-animal methods that are already in use in other countries. With the help of PETA supporters who hold stock in Medtronic, a resolution was filed in the spring of 2005, calling on the company to do the following:

• Commit to using only non-animal methods to assess skin corrosion, skin irritation, skin absorption, phototoxicity, and pyrogenicity.


• Confirm that it is in the company's best interests to commit to replacing animal-based tests with non-animal methods.


• Petition the relevant regulatory agencies that require safety testing for the company's products to accept the above-mentioned approved non-animal methods as total replacements for animal-based methods, along with any other non-animal methods currently used and accepted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other developed countries.

Based on subsequent discussions between Medtronic executives and PETA's science advisors, PETA voluntarily withdrew its shareholder resolution.