MDs call for socially responsible investments

Physicians for Global Survival (PGS) is calling on MD Management Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CMA, to divest its armaments industry investments and develop its own socially responsible investment funds.

In a letter to the chair of CMA's board of directors Dr. Allan Connolly, the past president of PGS, urged MD Management to provide “its physician clients with the option of not investing in the armaments industry.” As Connolly wrote in January, “The impact on public health of small arms, antipersonnel mines and conventional warfare technology requires no explanation.”

PGS, the Canadian arm of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, also wants MD Management financial consultants to be familiar with existing third-party socially responsible funds.

In a written response, Robert Hewett, president and CEO of MD Management, stated that the company “has not observed any demand for a restriction on investments in the armaments industry or any significant demand for MD-branded socially responsible funds.

“To address all the health and environmental concerns of all our clients would be impossible, since each investor may have a personal definition of what they consider ethical,” Hewett wrote. “The cost of establishing ethical funds would be significant and would require us to pass along those costs to our clients.”

MD clients can purchase ethical funds through the company's consolidated account, Hewett added. That account allows investors to buy third-party funds such as the Real Assets Social Leaders Fund.

In an interview, Hewett said the CMA board has directed MD Management not to invest in tobacco companies, but has issued no such directive relating to armament manufacturers.

A spokesman for PGS says that most physicians likely don't know that they may be investing in armament companies. In terms of professional responsibility and the ethics of the Hippocratic oath, says Dr. Neil Araya, doctors should not be “investing in things that kill people.”

“What they're telling us is that it's not a matter of ethics,” Araya says. “I guess physicians have to let them [MD Management] know that this is of interest to us.”