Target 3.3: End epidemics of AIDS, TB, malaria, other diseases
By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Ending these epidemics requires public programs and donor financing. The medicines and vaccines, however, are supplied by listed pharmaceutical companies whose pricing, licensing and patent conduct determine access. The Access to Medicine Index ranked Pfizer fourth in 2024 for its not-for-profit Accord pricing in 45 lower-income countries, while urging technology transfer for more products. Owners have used the proxy on this point. Proposals in 2024 at Gilead, Pfizer, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, AbbVie and Eli Lilly asked for assessment of how extended patent exclusivities affect access. Proposals in 2021 at Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson and Merck sought COVID-19 access strategies given public funding. Owners supply a necessary input. Governments and Global Fund financing must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Pfizer Inc company report, Access to Medicine Index 2024, Access to Medicine Foundation, 2024-11
- 2024 Shareholder Proposals at Pharma Companies Cite Strategies to Keep Drug Prices High as Potential Human Rights Risks, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2023-12-14
- Shareholder Proposals Seek to Prevent 'Vaccine Apartheid' via Disparate Access to Life-Saving Covid Medicines, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2021-04-19
2 campaigns on record
Asked Tyson's board to prepare a report on human rights due diligence, covering whether the company was doing enough on paid sick leave, COVID-19 testing and case counts, workload, and meaningful engagement with workers after over 12,500 workers were infected and dozens died during the pandemic.
With Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes, Congregation of St. Joseph, OH, Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Daughters of Charity, Province of St. Louise, Northwest Women Religious Investment Trust, PeaceHealth, Portico Benefit Services (ELCA), Sisters of Bon Secours, Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, NJ, Sisters of Providence, Mother Joseph Province, Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque, IA, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Dominican Sisters of Springfield, IL, Sisters of the Humility of Mary, BMO Asset Management
Result: Not approved at the February 11, 2021 annual meeting. The certified count was 168,155,962 votes for and 746,977,377 against, with 1,333,787 abstentions and 26,870,881 broker non-votes, which is 18.4 percent of the votes cast for and against. The Tyson family's supervoting Class B stock carries most of the voting power, and Investor Advocates for Social Justice put support among independent investors, excluding the Tyson Limited Partnership, at 78.7 percent. This was the third year the proposal had been filed at Tyson: in 2020 it drew 14.58 percent overall and 59.68 percent of independent shares. BlackRock and Vanguard voted for it, and Norges Bank and CalSTRS pre-declared support.
Tyson did not address the concerns the proposal raised, withheld preliminary vote results at the meeting and released them on its website on February 17, and gave shareholders no opportunity to ask questions; the meeting lasted under thirty minutes. No policy change at Tyson attributable to this vote was found in the sources opened.
A coalition of over 120 organizations demanded Tyson Foods provide personal protective equipment, paid sick leave, slower slaughter-line speeds, comprehensive COVID-19 testing, physical distancing, protection from retaliation for workers who organize, and elimination of a punitive attendance point system, after over 8,500 workers across 37 facilities tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 25 died.
With Friends of the Earth, HEAL Food Alliance, The Humane League, Venceremos, 120+ other organizations
Result: This was a public pressure campaign and sign-on letter directed partly at Tyson's institutional investors, not a shareholder resolution put to a vote.
We found no documented company-wide policy change directly attributed to this July 2020 campaign; continued investor dissatisfaction with Tyson's response is documented in the February 2021 shareholder vote listed separately above.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.