Animal rights attacks were terrorism not activism, says Vasella

pharmafile | August 13, 2009 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing Animal tests, Novartis, Vasella 

Novartis chief executive Daniel Vasella has spoken for the first time of his shock at the arson attack on his Austrian holiday property.

Speaking from his home in Switzerland, in an interview with CNBC News, he said the perpetrators were terrorists.

"It's highly unpleasant, to say the least, to be attacked so directly and threatened. And of course it's the objective, to terrorise and instil fear," Vasella added.

Thought to be the work of animal rights protesters, his holiday home in Bach, Austria was set alight last week.

It followed last month's desecration of the grave of Vasella's mother in Chur, Switzerland, in which her ashes were stolen.

"When you try to terrorise people and you burn their houses, when you desecrate graves and when you make death threats – to me, that is way beyond activism and I would call this, clearly, terrorism," he told CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Vasella and his family were not staying at the house when it was set on fire in the early hours of the morning, and he declined to say whether he thought they would have been harmed by the blaze, had they been there.

"I wouldn't want to speculate if and when we would have discovered the fire and if and when we could have escaped."

Asked if he had a message for the people who carried out the attack, he replied: "I think society needs to give the message because these people try to hinder medical progress and stand in front of new medicines for patients."

The slogan 'Drop HLS Now', a reference to UK animal research firm Huntingdon Life Sciences, was left on his mother's grave.

The activist group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) has denied involvement and police have not named suspects.

But for Vasella the desecration brought back thoughts of the deaths of his father, and of his sister.

"It's also a completely new experience, and it's hurting, and a lot of old memories come up of the loss I experienced, especially my sister when she died of cancer and my father when I was 13."

"All these memories come up, and of course that's the intention."

Vasella concluded: "You try to deal with it in a rational way but without denying the feelings."

Novartis said it had no further comment to make on the issue when contacted by Pharmafocus.

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