Disinfectant victims establish corporation

The victims of toxic humidifier disinfectants and their families have established a corporation to systematically speed up their action against the manufacturers and government, a civic group said Sunday.

More than 100 victims and families held a general meeting and set up a board comprising 22 members, including 17 directors, three advisers and two auditors.

So far, the group has worked as an unofficial unit without any legal basis.

“(The group) has worked with the mere goal of bringing up the problem, but it has concluded that working as an unofficial group has limitations for drawing active and systematic measures,” said Choi Ye-yong, head of the Asian Citizen’s Center for Environment and Health.

“With the support of civic groups and the public, (we) would like to start a long-term process to find the truth and punish those responsible for the deaths. (We will do so) by seeking legal punishment against manufacturers, a group lawsuit, a parliamentary hearing over the case and the enactment of a special law for the victims.”

The group said it will not only put efforts into receiving “sincere” apologies and compensation from the manufacturers, but also launch a social movement to call for preventives measures for a safer country. They will also be dedicated to finding untraced potential victims, the group said.

The probe into the humidifier disinfectant case continues with more members of Oxy Beckitt Renckiser being questioned along with more local distributors last week.

Meanwhile, reports said that former head of Butterflyeffect, one of the toxic sterilizer manufacture, had used his own product named Cefu at his home, leading to the death of his 1-year-old daughter in 2011. The official cause of the death was acute pneumonia, which was the same symptom of many victims.

Of the victims officially recognized by the government, 27 used Cefu, with 14 deaths reported.

Oh was arrested on May 14 for accidental manslaughter charges for selling the toxic humidifier disinfectant.

He was found to have imported 700 kilograms of PHG from Danish company KeTox in 2009 and 2010. The Danish company previously denied that it provided the chemical and claimed that it had only provided 40 liters of samples in 2007.

The prosecution said Oh had initially produced the disinfectant with PGH, but later mixed the chemical with PHMG purchased from SK Chemicals as he had difficulties in obtaining more PGH.

On Monday, the prosecution will summon John Lee who headed Oxy Reckitt Benckiser’s Korean branch from June 2005 to May 2010, on charges of accidental manslaughter. Lee is currently serving as Google Korea CEO.

It will look into why Lee did not recall products or take measures despite the customers’ complaints, and whether the U.K. headquarters engaged in such move, investigators said.

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