Operating Ethically and Transparently

We strive to apply the highest standards of ethics and integrity to everything we do. Our efforts to be more transparent about our operations include:

• Grants: Ongoing education for healthcare professionals is important and required. We often make grants to organisations that provide independent, professional education initiatives for physicians, including accredited continuing medical education (CME). MSD has no influence over the content of these courses.
• Relationships with physicians: MSD interacts regularly with physicians to share information about the newest medicines and treatments, as well as hear about patients' experiences with our products. We disclose payments to healthcare providers who speak on our behalf. We have also endorsed pending legislation that mandates disclosure of certain financial relationships between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry.
• Clinical trials registration and disclosure: Conducting clinical trials is a critical step in determining if our products are safe and effective. We register our trials online when studies are initiated to make patients and healthcare providers aware of these trials. We also make study results of marketed products - regardless of the outcome - available following study completion. More
• Social and environmental responsibility: Our transparency efforts also extend to other important aspects of our operations such as our environmental performance, our efforts to expand access to our medicines and vaccines around the world and our progress on diversity in the workplace. Data on these and other key performance indicators are available in our latest corporate responsibility reports:

Merck's 2008 Report
Merck's 2008 Report Online
Schering-Plough 2009 Report on Safety, Health and Environment

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