Merck is committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace for all of our employees and contractors around the world.

We also expect all employees to do their jobs without compromising their own safety and well-being or those of our workforce or the communities in which we operate. As a healthcare company, we strive to ensure that our employees and contractors return home from work every day safe and healthy.

Merck strives to eliminate work-related injuries, illnesses and unplanned events from our operations globally by complying fully with all applicable country and local safety laws and regulations. We have developed comprehensive Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) programs as part of an overall management system to help our operations achieve these goals.

EHS professionals at our operating sites and in our business groups consult and support line management with the implementation of our global EHS programs. These professionals use EHS programs and tools to support site-specific procedures and training to ensure compliance and address potential safety risks throughout our operations.

In addition, most of our manufacturing and research sites have active safety committees that discuss safety issues with employees and implement awareness initiatives that help promote a safety culture.

Globally, we require that all recordable injuries, illnesses and incidents involving Merck employees be reported and investigated to determine their cause. We also require actions to be taken to prevent recurrence. For consistency across the company, and to enable us to compare our performance with that of other companies, we use the U.S.-based Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) injury and illness recordkeeping system. We consolidate our injury and illness data into a central system to analyze trends and determine appropriate responses. We also take steps—through internal safety alerts and bulletins—to communicate significant incidents that could represent risks to other Merck operations and sites.

Most of our recordable employee injuries are related to motor vehicle accidents, ergonomics issues, and slips, trips and falls. However, the activities performed in our research and manufacturing operations present potential risks associated with the handling and use of chemical, biological and pharmacologically active materials. Our facility and process designs, process controls, protection systems and emergency response capabilities minimize the frequency and severity of incidents.

Motor Vehicle Safety

Vehicle collisions remain a leading cause of serious injury to Merck employees, so preventing motor vehicle accidents continues to be a key focus of our global employee safety efforts. Our sales employees are especially at risk, as most spend a significant part of any given workday on the road. A number of initiatives adopted by the sales division, with strong sponsorship from the global executive team, reduced motor vehicle collisions and injuries in 2010. These initiatives included:

• Establishing divisional and regional performance targets and objectives for motor vehicle safety
• Implementing the motor vehicle safety element of Merck's EHS management system globally (excluding Animal Health)
• Expanding our training program to increase safety awareness and driving skills to 51 markets around the world
• Quarterly reporting of motor vehicle safety performance and quarterly reviews by executive leadership

Merck continues to build on the historical success of our motor vehicle safety initiatives in the United States by leveraging best practices and proven risk-management techniques worldwide. As the global footprint of Merck's commercial operations changes, particularly in emerging markets, new initiatives have been launched to address potential motor vehicle hazards unique to these environments.

Ergonomics

The science of fitting a task to an individual is known as ergonomics. Over the past four years, ergonomics-related injuries have annually accounted for nearly one-third of our total recordable injuries globally. Most of these injuries involved manual handling of items and repetitive motion. We are taking steps to reduce the frequency and severity of these injuries.

In 2009, Merck deployed a new, comprehensive global ergonomics program to standardize the evaluation and control of ergonomic risk factors at all of our sites. This program includes a common methodology to identify and evaluate control measures for ergonomic hazards, so that solutions can be shared. The new ergonomic assessment tools, along with engineering ergonomic design standards, will help improve the consistency and effectiveness of ergonomics programs throughout Merck.

Process Safety

Merck has a corporate Process Safety Management (PSM) program to identify and address risks associated with our pharmaceutical production operations.

Our program applies not only to operations subject to process safety regulations, but also to all pilot plants and manufacturing operations worldwide, including Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API), pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing. The program establishes requirements to identify, evaluate and control process-safety risks so we can operate safely.

Early in the product development stage, we begin testing our processes to identify potential process-safety hazards. This effort continues throughout the product life cycle. Process equipment design criteria, such as vessel overpressure protection, are detailed in the Merck Engineering Standards. PSM professionals work with operations and technical personnel using such structured techniques as Hazard and Operability studies to review our operations. These reviews verify that the facility, equipment, operating controls and procedures are appropriate to address the particular process hazards.

A solid understanding of process-safety principles, requirements and program expectations is critical to the ongoing success of this program. As part of our effort to continuously improve our programs, in 2010 we integrated our existing process-safety requirements into a PSM management system element, which aligns with the Center for Chemical Process Safety Guidelines for Risk-Based Process Safety.

Industrial Hygiene

To protect our employees from health hazards in the workplace, Merck has created an industrial hygiene (IH) management system to identify and control risks from chemical, physical and biological hazards.

For new processes, we focus on process design to prevent or minimize health risks to employees. For existing processes, we formally evaluate if occupational health risks can be further reduced or eliminated using the industrial hygiene hierarchy of controls: elimination, substitution, installation of feasible engineering controls, use of administrative controls, or the proper use of personal protective equipment.

We strive to continuously improve our industrial hygiene program by making sure consistent processes have been implemented in our facilities and by providing ongoing training to our global IH Team. Having a strong industrial hygiene program is critical for protecting our employees' health and supporting the business as we develop increasingly targeted medicines.

Capital Projects Construction Safety

Merck began our construction safety program in 1990, which includes educating and coaching our contractors and focusing on continuous improvement.

We've recently adopted Hearts and Minds^™, a culture-based program that promotes safety as a personal value. This program has had significant positive impact. With our cultural, strategic and tactical approach, we have been able to achieve our goal of zero recordable injuries on more than 90 percent of 120 active, large construction projects (those costing more than $100,000).

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