Toxic humidifier disinfectant firm refutes product harmfulness

The manufacturer of the toxic humidifier disinfectant that allegedly caused lung damages to 126 people and killed 95, refuted the health impact of its product with experiment data, prosecutors said Friday.

The special probe team of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said that it has received a product harmfulness test result from Reckitt Benckiser, which produced Oxy Ssak Ssak, the disinfectant used by about 70 percent of the victims.

The test result, which was independently conducted at a public university lab, reportedly questioned the validity of the state’s health causality test.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had said back in 2012, after an animal test, that it confirmed the causality between six main ingredients found in the concerned product and lung damage in the victims.
 
Reckitt Benckiser, however, refuted that the test was based on a different concentration of the controversial ingredient from the actual product and that the three-month period was not sufficient to deduce causality. It also questioned the appropriateness of applying the animal testing result to humans.

The manufacturer’s test result was submitted to prosecutors after it was reviewed by Kim & Chang, the largest law firm in South Korea, authorities said.

The probe team is currently comparing and analyzing the two harmfulness test results, a process that is expected to take at least a month.

The probe will be suspended until the disputed health causality is proven, said sources.

Procecutors also issued a foreign travel ban on dozens of people who were involved in producing and distributing the problematic product. This included former Reckitt Benckiser CEO Shin Hyun-woo, former Lotte Mart CEO Noh Byung-yong, former Homeplus chairman Lee Seung-han and a number of former and incumbent foreign executives of Reckitt Benckiser, they said.

The humidifier disinfectant probe was launched in 2012, after four pregnant women consecutively died of a mysterious lung-related illness in 2011. The victims and supporting civic groups also filed for a foreign travel ban earlier this week on 29 former and incumbent executive members of the company.

According to the Asian Citizen’s Center for Environment and Health, a total of 1,484 individuals reported health damages to both the government and civic groups from 2011 to January this year. So far, 221 of them have officially confirmed health causality.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)