News Release

Baxter International Receives DePaul University's Business Ethics Award for 2001

DEERFIELD, Ill., May 17, 2001 - DePaul University will award Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) its 2001 Business Ethics Award tomorrow morning at the DePaul College of Commerce's "Financial Market Update 2001: Strategies in the Volatile Technology Sector," the event to be held at the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk, 151 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago.

DePaul University's Institute for Business and Professional Ethics (IBPE) established its annual Business Ethics Award two years ago to honor companies headquartered in the Chicago area that demonstrate special dedication and innovative approaches to integrating ethics into everyday business practices. The goal of the award is to create a dialogue about ethics within the corporate community by highlighting the best ethical practices.

"The materials Baxter submitted were truly excellent and conveyed to the IBPE Awards Committee the wholehearted commitment of everybody in the Baxter organization to the highest standard of ethical behavior in business," said John Ahern, executive director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University.

"Integrity defines everything we do here at Baxter," said Gretchen A. Winter, vice president and counsel, business practices. "The business practice programs and processes we have in place and the shared values that are ingrained into our culture help us every day to advance our corporate commitment to integrity, honesty, openness and fairness."

Members of the Business Ethics Award evaluation committee selected Baxter for its exemplary programs, policies and initiatives that can serve as models or prototypes for other like-minded organizations. The panel of evaluators included members of the IBPE board of directors, representatives of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Chicago, an independent ethics consultant, DePaul University faculty, and former award winners, all of whom have been selected based on their knowledge and expertise about current and emerging trends in business ethics practices.

The IBPE was co-founded in 1985 by DePaul's College of Commerce and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to provide a forum for exploring and furthering ethical practices in organizations. The mission of the IBPE is to encourage ethical deliberation in decision-makers by stirring the moral conscience and imagination. The IBPE sponsors ethics-related lectures and conferences, including an annual rotating ethics conference, with St. John's and Niagara universities on business ethics teaching and training. The institute's Web site is: http://www.depaul.edu/ethics/.

Baxter International Inc. is a global medical products and services company that, through its subsidiaries, provides critical therapies for people with life-threatening conditions. Baxter's products and services in bioscience (biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biosurgery products and transfusion therapies), medication delivery and renal therapy are used by health-care providers and their patients in more than 100 countries.

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	Media Contacts: George Rafeedie (847) 948-3675 Deborah Spak, (847) 948-2349