Stephen J. Cowden
General Council & Company Secretary
Reed Elsevier
1-3 Strand
London, WC2N 5JR
21 July 2005
Dear Mr Cowden
Thanks for your reply (12 July) to my letter of 29th of June. I asked three questions in my letter:
Will Elsevier stop helping to organise arms fairs, specifically DSEi (next scheduled for September 2005)? How does your involvement in the arms trade square with your playing ‘a positive role in our local and global communities’? How should the members of academic and medical communities feel about this involvement?
You answered the first, with a straight ‘no’. I’d still like to know the answer to these two:
How does your involvement in the arms trade square with your playing ‘a positive role in our local and global communities’? How should the members of academic and medical communities feel about this involvement?
And to this I’ll add another:
How can you say believe that sufficient “rigorous checks” are made on the exhibitors at DSEi and that their activities are “legitimate” when illegal activities, such as the sale of landmines (banned by international convention) have been shown, repeatedly, to be organised at DSEi? [1]. Are you able to provide details of the checks that your organisation carried out on exhibitors?
I look forward to hearing from you
Yours
Tom Stafford
Endnote:
[1] http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/dsei/dsei-2003-report/landmines.php