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The Plaintiff Media Kit

Author
Affiliation

Mike P. Sinn

International Campaign to End War and Disease

Keywords

media kit, op-ed template, social media, interview prep, press release, shareholder lawsuit

The press release goes to reporters. This kit goes to the plaintiff. Print all four sections and have them in hand on filing day. Counsel reviews everything before publication.

Op-Ed Draft (Optional)

Pitch at T+7d. 800-1,200 words. Headline and subhead are placeholders; the outlet’s editor will rewrite them.

Headline: I sued the board of a defense contractor because I love them.

Subhead: The math says the Company’s lobbying is killing the people who own the shares. I bought one share to put the math in front of them. So can you.

Last week I mailed a shareholder demand letter to the Board of [COMPANY]. I own one share. I paid $[X] for it. I love the people I am suing.

I love them the way you love anyone who is about to die of something preventable while pretending they are not. The Board of [COMPANY] is making a recurring corporate decision that, in actuarial terms, is shortening their own lives, the lives of their spouses and children, the lives of the company’s shareholders, and the lives of every human in the economy the company operates in. The Board has not, as far as anyone knows, ever sat down to ask whether that decision is actually good for the people who own the shares. The lawsuit asks them to do that.

The mechanism is small. [COMPANY] spends approximately $[X] million a year on federal lobbying. The lobbying is pointed at maintaining the ratio of US military spending to government clinical-trial spending, currently 604 (95% CI: 453-894) to 1. The treatments that would cure pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and cardiovascular disease are not being developed because the trials are not being funded because the funding ratio is what it is because the lobby tells Congress to keep it that way.

Three molecules sitting in the untested-compound queue right now, with public research support and no funded large-scale trials: metformin for Alzheimer’s. Rapamycin for biological aging. Low-dose naltrexone for autoimmune conditions and certain cancers. The 1% redirection funds those trials. The current lobbying blocks them. The blocking is what is going to kill us.

I am not asking the Company to do anything new. I am asking the Company to stop doing something specific. The settlement is non-monetary. The Board redirects the same lobbying budget, in the same offices, with the same lobbyists, to argue for the 1% treaty157 158 on Capitol Hill instead of arguing against it. Nothing in the Company’s operations changes. The only thing that changes is what the Company’s lobbyists are saying in the meetings they were already going to have.

The math is in the demand letter, sourced entirely from SIPRI, the WHO, the NIH, OpenSecrets, and [COMPANY]’s own SEC filings. The legal theory is Caremark, Marchand, Stone v. Ritter. A board that knowingly continues an expenditure shown to be negative-ROI for its own shareholders is in conscious disregard of a known risk. The demand letter creates the record.

I want to be clear about who this lawsuit hurts. It does not hurt [COMPANY]. The settlement does not cost the Company a dollar. It hurts no shareholder. It hurts no employee. The people the lawsuit hurts are the lobbyists who would otherwise have spent the next decade pointing the federal budget at missiles, and the people who profit from those lobbyists keeping it pointed that way. The people the lawsuit helps are everyone else, including everyone named in the caption.

As far as anyone can tell, this is the first lawsuit in legal history where the defendants are radically better off losing than winning. Settle and the Board members and their shareholders are roughly $3.48 million (95% CI: $1.05 million-$9.82 million) richer over a lifetime and roughly 12 years (95% CI: 8 years-18 years) longer-lived. Fight and win and they stay on the trajectory that, on average, kills them and their families earlier than the math says they could have lived. That is not metaphor. That is the actuarial table.

If you are a shareholder of any major defense contractor, you can do exactly what I did. One share. Two hundred dollars. The template is at warondisease.org/lawsuit. There are eight pre-filled demand letters ready to print. The Board has to respond to whoever sent the letter, regardless of who sent it.

The lobbying that has caused American policy to drift this far from any honest cost-benefit calculation is built on the assumption that no one is doing the math. I did the math. So can you. The math is in the public record. The compounds are in the public record. The diseases are in your family. The cost of telling the Board is a marker, an evening, and the price of one share of stock.

[PLAINTIFF NAME] is a shareholder of [COMPANY] and the lead plaintiff in the demand letter described above. [TODO for plaintiff: optionally add one sentence on the personal stake, e.g., “She filed the case after losing her father to pancreatic cancer in 2024.”]

Social Media Kit

Publish at T=0 + 1 hour, simultaneously with the press release distribution. Counsel reviews before publishing.

Tweet thread (5 tweets)

1. Today I sued the board of [COMPANY]. I love them and I do not want them to suffer and die of horrible diseases. The lawsuit is the only legal mechanism to make them read the math showing their lobbying is killing them, their families, and their shareholders. 🧵

2. [COMPANY] lobbies to keep military appropriations high. Current ratio of military to clinical-trial spending: 604 (95% CI: 453-894):1. Redirecting 1% to trials compresses the disease eradication timeline from 443 years to 36.

3. Global GDP at year 15 under the 1% redirect: ~4.1x (95% CI: 2.02x-8.62x) the current trajectory. [COMPANY]’s revenue is a fraction of US federal spending, which is a fraction of US GDP. They are paying lobbyists to keep small the economy that funds them, and to keep small the medical research that would cure the diseases that will kill them.

4. I’m asking the Board to redirect the SAME lobbying budget from “maintain military appropriations” to “support a 1% redirection.” Same lobbyists. Different objective. Net cost: $0. Net effect: none of us has to die of a disease the math says we could have cured. Legal basis: Caremark, Marchand.

5. You can do this too. 1 share = ~$200. Template + 8 pre-filled letters at warondisease.org/lawsuit. The Board has 60 days to respond regardless of who sent the letter. RT this to the next shareholder. We love the board. We are also not going away.

LinkedIn post

Reshare the op-ed link with a 2-sentence framing: “Today I filed a shareholder demand letter against the Board of [COMPANY] under Caremark. The pleading argues the company’s $[X]M annual lobbying budget is mathematically negative-ROI for its own shareholders. Full piece: [op-ed link].”

Video script (optional, 60-90 seconds vertical for TikTok/Reels/Shorts)

If you want to shoot one: open with “Today I sued a defense contractor for $200” on camera holding the share, hit the 604 (95% CI: 453-894):1 ratio + the 443→36 years compression + the 4× GDP point, close with “1 share, ~$200, template at warondisease.org/lawsuit.”

Interview Prep Q&A

The 9 most likely reporter questions. Practice the top 5 out loud before the first call.

Q1: Are you attacking the board members personally?

No. We love them. We do not want them to suffer and die of horrible diseases. We do not want their families, their shareholders, or our own families to suffer and die of horrible diseases. The lawsuit is the only mechanism we have to put the math in front of them in a form they are legally required to read. We are asking them to redirect the existing lobbying budget so that none of us, including them, has to die of a disease the math says we could have cured.

Q2: What are you suing for?

I’m not suing for damages personally. I’m asking the Board of [COMPANY] to commission an independent ROI analysis of their $[X] million annual lobbying expenditure, accounting for the lobbying’s effect on the macroeconomic environment that funds the company’s contracts. The proposed settlement is that they redirect the existing lobbying objective from maintaining military spending levels to supporting a 1% redirection to clinical trials. No incremental cost to the company.

Q3: Why do you think the lobbying is bad for shareholders?

The company’s revenue is denominated in a fraction of US federal spending. US federal spending is denominated in a fraction of US GDP. Independent modeling shows that redirecting 1% of military spending to pragmatic clinical trials produces global GDP at year 15 of approximately 4× the current trajectory, through reduced disease burden and accelerated productivity. So the 1% they’re “protecting” through lobbying is dominated by the gain they’d get from operating in a 4× larger economy.

Q4: This sounds like a stunt. Is this serious?

The legal theory is grounded in Caremark, Marchand v. Barnhill, and Stone v. Ritter. The math is sourced from SIPRI, WHO, NIH, OpenSecrets, and the company’s own SEC filings. The 60-day clock is statutory. The Rule 14a-8 proposal and the derivative action that follow if the Board doesn’t respond are real legal vehicles. The pleading is publicly available.

Q5: How much will this cost the company in damages if you win?

Zero, if the Board accepts the proposed settlement. The settlement is non-monetary. Same budget. Different objective. Net incremental cost: $0.

Q6: Why this company?

The lawsuit theory applies to every major defense prime. Pre-filled demand letters exist for all 8 (Lockheed, RTX, Boeing, GD, Northrop, L3Harris, HII, Leidos). [COMPANY] is the first/early defendant because of [pick: largest, most prominent CEO, largest lobbying spend, state of incorporation].

Q7: Are you trying to disarm America?

The opposite. The 1% treaty is the most pro-defense action available to the United States. The country that won World War II had 96.7% less defense spending than the United States has today, and the reason it won is that its productive economy had not been cannibalized to fund a peacetime military. The current allocation is how the United States is losing strategic competition to China, which spends less than half as much on defense and invests the difference into the productive base that determines who wins the next real war. The treaty cuts 1% from peacetime spending and redirects it into the civilian economy that any actual wartime mobilization would draw on. See The Eisenhower Curve for the full argument.

Q8: What if the company just ignores the demand letter?

I’ll file a Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal in the next proxy cycle and a derivative action in [Delaware Chancery / Maryland] at day 61.

Q9: Why should I care?

Disease kills approximately 100% of humans, eventually. Most of those deaths are from diseases that would have treatments if anyone had funded the trials. The lobbying is paid for by the same companies whose shareholders die of those diseases. You are probably a shareholder through an index fund or 401k. You can do this too: 1 share, ~$200, template at warondisease.org/lawsuit. The Board has to respond within 60 days regardless of who sent the letter.

T+60d Follow-Up Press Release

Distribute the day the Board’s response (or non-response) becomes public. Use the same journalist list with a different headline angle depending on the outcome.

If the Board commissions the analysis

[CITY, DATE]: [COMPANY]’s Board of Directors has agreed to commission an independent ROI analysis of the company’s federal lobbying expenditure, in response to a shareholder demand letter filed sixty days ago. [PLAINTIFF NAME] welcomed the response: “This is the right move. The Board has chosen to let their own grandchildren live longer. I hope every defense contractor board does the same.” The analysis is scheduled for [TIMELINE] and will be published on the company’s investor relations website. The same demand letter template has now been filed against [N] other defense contractors.

If the Board declines or doesn’t respond

[CITY, DATE]: [COMPANY]’s Board of Directors today declined to investigate whether the company’s $[X] million annual lobbying expenditure is shortening the lives of its own shareholders, their families, and its own directors. Sixty days after receiving a shareholder demand letter setting out the math, the Board’s response addressed every procedural question and none of the substantive ones. [PLAINTIFF NAME] today filed a derivative action in [Delaware Chancery / Maryland circuit] plus a Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal under Caremark, Marchand, and Stone v. Ritter. “I would have preferred a phone call,” [PLAINTIFF NAME] said. “I love the Board. The Board’s response shows the Board has not yet read the math. The lawsuit is the procedural mechanism that requires them to.” Counsel: [FIRM NAME].