Let me start by telling you a story.

Merck KGaA (EMD Chemicals in the United States and Canada) is a German-based chemical and pharmaceutical company. Merck was founded in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1668. Following World War I, Merck lost possession of its foreign sites, including the Merck & Co. subsidiary in the United States. Today, the US company, Merck & Co. Inc., is a global company, with no links to their German origins.

Merck & Co. had (I believe this is no longer the case) links with Huntington Life Sciences, where animal research experiments take place. Not surprisingly, therefore, they attracted the attention of animal rights activists.

Now, if you were THAT passionate about something, you’d think that a modicum of research would be in order. Which leaves me baffled as to why the aforementioned animals rights people regularly (or they certainly did until recently) picket outside the UK offices of Merck KGaA with placards about Huntington. They even smashed the windows of one of their other offices.

Maybe I took this personally because my wife was working for Merck KGaA at the time and I regularly had to drive past them when dropping her off (and then hearing stories of intimidation they’d receive during the day).

I would, humbly, suggest that surely the basics such as this are the first steps to be taken seriously. Until then, you just seem like idiots.