Social Performance: Society

Customer Health & Safety

Bristol-Myers Squibb provides consumers, commercial customers, and distributors with information necessary to ensure the safe use, transportation, storage, and disposal of our products.

Some of the pharmaceutical products that we manufacture and market are, by design, toxic to living cells. Other products may pose potential risks to the environment or human health and safety if not properly managed during storage, use, and disposal. In order to meet the needs of our customers, we have developed several tools to help in this regard.

Pandemic Planning

Bristol-Myers Squibb is in the final stages of developing a comprehensive global plan for effectively responding to a pandemic, whether caused by the current H5N1 avian influenza virus strain or other influenza or non-influenza virus.

While there have been no reports of sustained human-to-human transmission of avian flu, prudent preparedness planning and monitoring is important.

Fundamental to our plan is the safety and welfare of our employees, the communities in which we work and live and those who rely on our medications, infant formula and other health care products. For example, we are planning for the continued provision, to the greatest degree possible, of medically necessary products and critical business activities during any pandemic. To help make that happen, we are coordinating efforts with our business partners and suppliers.

We expect that the plan will continue to evolve and be updated as necessary.

Product Labeling

The vast majority of our products relate to health care, the labeling of which governments strictly regulate to ensure safe use. We follow the highest standards of labeling and product safety information for our health care and consumer products. We also have systems for tracking consumer comments and adverse reactions to our products. We then use this information to modify product formulations, labeling, and material safety data sheets, as appropriate. Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Regulatory Affairs department follows policy development, collects data on labeling, and ensures compliance with regulations.

Marketing and Advertising

Bristol-Myers Squibb is committed to compliance of our sales and marketing practices with all applicable requirements, including guidelines of the Office of the Inspector General with respect to sales of pharmaceutical products.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Mead Johnson Nutritionals endorse the aim of the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes in developing countries, including standards for product integrity, labeling, distribution, and promotion.

Business Association Memberships

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a member of many business associations whose activities foster sustainable development, including:

Business for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit membership organization that helps companies be commercially successful in ways that demonstrate respect for ethical values, people, communities, and the environment.
International Safety Council, an organization that provides training, expertise, products, and services related to all areas of safety, health, and the environment.
EHS group of the Organization Resources Counselors, a forum for corporate managers with environmental, health, and safety (EHS) responsibilities to examine issues and to help shape policies.
World Environment Center, an independent, not-for-profit, non-advocacy organization that contributes to sustainable development worldwide by strengthening industrial and urban EHS policies and practices.
Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), a group of leading companies dedicated to fostering EHS excellence among businesses worldwide. Bristol-Myers Squibb is a founding member of GEMI and one of our senior EHS professionals serves on the GEMI Board of Directors.
Iniciativa GEMI (IGEMI), a sister organization to GEMI, based in Mexico. Bristol-Myers Squibb is an active leader within IGEMI.
Resources for the Future, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that conducts independent research – rooted primarily in economics and other social sciences – on environmental and natural resource issues.

Employees from Bristol-Myers Squibb facilities around the globe serve in prominent positions within business associations and civic organizations. In accordance with the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pledge, our employees strive to encourage activities within external organizations that promote sustainability.

Political Contributions

Bristol-Myers Squibb works with others to advocate for public policies that encourage the discovery of life-saving and life-enhancing new medicines for patients. We work closely with PhRMA to achieve broad patient access to safe and effective medicines through a free market, without price controls; strong intellectual property incentives; and transparent, efficient regulation and a free flow of information to patients. We are active members of other organizations that support our views on issues affecting the healthcare industry.

Our company believes that we should be an active and effective participant in the political process and should support the legislative process by contributing prudently to state and local candidates and political organizations when such contributions are permitted by federal, state, and local law.

We provide a list of all contributions made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to individual state candidates, parties, and other organizations eligible to accept corporate contributions and a list of all contributions made by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Employee Political Action Committee ("EPAC"), a multi-candidate Federal PAC connected to Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Last updated June 11, 2008 . Italicized product names are registered trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company or one of its divisions or subsidiaries. Copyright © 1998-2006 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Your use of the information on this site is subject to the terms of our Legal Notices.