New Health Labs Targeted by Animal Rights Activists Adapted from material from APR

Case Study: New Health Labs Targeted by Animal Rights Activists

Adapted from material from APR (2013).

Situation

You are the director of public relations for New Health Labs, a large chemical research company in Troy, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Your privately held company has been in business for 21 years and has specialized in providing research and chemical analysis in a variety of areas. Virtually all your work is based on contracts from federal and state agencies and on grants from foundations. The majority of your work involves developing sewage treatment and water purification programs for applications in the United States and developing countries. Your researchers have been recognized frequently for their work in this area, and the lab has a reputation for producing environmentally sound, socially aware solutions to problems. As PR director, you have conducted an aggressive and successful campaign to generate publicity for the lab’s research program. However, the company has kept one research program under wraps.

For the last 10 years, the lab has had a small contract to test Ragus-A, a new medicine that appears to reverse a genetically based deficiency of the hormone insulin, which is the cause of diabetes mellitus or Type 1 diabetes.

• To test Ragus-A, the lab has modified the genes of chimpanzees to cause them to lack the insulin hormone and to pass that trait on to their offspring. The offspring are then treated with Ragus-A. The experiment involves regular injections of Ragus-A.
• The control group is not treated and exhibits symptoms of diabetes, including episodes of insulin shock under certain circumstances.
• As part of the test, mature monkeys are euthanized so the long-term effect of Ragus-A on the brain and other body parts can be determined. In 10 years, 30 monkeys have been used in the experiment, and 10 have been euthanized for examination.
• The tests are scheduled to last another six months.

The Ragus-A experiments have not been publicized nor has the contract ever been announced. In fact, most New Health employees do not know about the program, and the public knows virtually nothing about the Ragus-A contract.

You learn that ROAR (pROtectors of Animal Rights) has found out about the Ragus-A program and is planning to demonstrate outside the lab in just over a month. ROAR has been successful in generating media coverage of demonstrations at the National Institutes of Health and other private laboratories in the Washington area.

You are concerned about the negative publicity that could come from the protest — especially the impact of publicity on New Health employees and on decision makers at federal and state agencies and foundations that support the vast majority of the lab’s work.

When Dr. Roxan Nagel, director of the Ragus-A program, is informed of the planned protest, she suggests that the entire project — including all the monkeys and the four-person research team — be moved quickly to a small New Health facility in another state. The lab could then deny the existence of the program and stall reporters and demonstrators for six months until the project could be concluded quietly.

You inform Dr. Adam Davis, president of New Health Labs and a distinguished researcher, of the planned demonstration. Dr. Davis asks you to consider Dr. Nagel’s suggestions as you continue to develop your action plan. He asks you to develop a communication plan for what the lab should do.

Individual Assignment

For this assignment, you are to write a memo (using your own name) addressed to Dr. Adam Davis outlining your plan to resolve this issue.

Remember, that your memo will be made available to Dr. Nagel and others within the organization.  In your recommendations, you should state what ethical issues you feel Dr Nagel’s suggestion may have.  You should provide both long and short-term strategies that would solve this problem. To solve the problem you should note if additional resources or expenditures would be need to achieve the goals that you define.

When writing the memo you should provide a brief description of the problems, you have found.  What are the facts about major issues?  Identify facts about key players in the case, the business problem(s) and then rank the critical issues.  Consider relevant information and underlying assumptions.  Finally provide your recommendations.

As you write your recommendations, think about the following;

• How do the cultural values at the company relate to communication, technology, information flow and openness?
• How would you suggest that they resolve this disparity? In other words what should they do?
• Provide specific suggestions that will help the organization as they go forward.

In the closing, highlight benefits of your recommendations.  As a PR director, you need to be honest but tactful in your recommendations.

Submit to Canvas under Unit 2 Individual Case Study Analysis.

Group Review of Individual Case Study

Exchange your reports with team members; review their report for functionality, audience adaption, readability etc.  Provide comments on each document.  When you receive your document back write a couple paragraphs answering the following questions:

• What elements of your team’s advice would you incorporate?
• Which would you ignore?
• Why?

Submit your comments to Canvas under Unit 2 Group Review.

Team Response

For the team response, act as if you are a team of outside consultants who have been asked to review the individual suggestions and provide the Board of Directors with a set of recommendations.

• Analyze case with team members and reach group consensus on specific analysis and recommendations to be included in final team letter (all group members will initial and receive a group grade for final team document).
• Compose final version of Team Letter (parts of different members’ individual documents may be used to compose final team document).

Submit your report to Canvas under Unit 2 Team Analysis Case Study.