Oxy failed to test humidifier disinfectant apparently due to internal problems: prosecution

Activists stage a performance to call on people to not purchase Oxy products at a supermarket in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, in this photo taken on May 18, 2016. (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — Oxy Reckitt Benckiser, a British firm at the center of a burgeoning humidifier disinfectant scandal, sought to conduct a test on its product’s potential health risks in the early 2000s, but the plan foundered apparently due to an internal problem, state prosecutors said Wednesday.

Just one month after Oxy rolled out its humidifier sterilizer containing “polyhexamethylene guanidine,” a hazardous chemical, in October 2000, the company asked two laboratories in the United States and Britain to conduct a test on it.

The labs responded positively to Oxy, but for an unknown reason the company did not actually commission them to carry out the test, investigators said.

Prosecutors suspect that the test was not carried out because Oxy, once the affiliate of OCI Company Ltd., was undergoing a major upheaval in the process of merging with Britain’s Reckitt Benckiser in March 2001.

Following the merger the company underwent major shifts in terms of personnel, management structure and other operational matters. But its product in question was still being sold despite the potential health risks.

“This scandal seems to be a tragedy stemming from laxity, irresponsibility and apathy (about health hazards),” a prosecutorial source said, requesting anonymity.

Meanwhile, the prosecution is considering leveling fraud charges against the former chief executive officer of the company, Shin Hyun-woo, and several other officials, as the company’s product in point initially carried a message indicating that it was harmless.

Shin, who led the company between 1991 and 2005, is suspected of leading the entire process of development, sales and marketing of the toxic products. He was arrested on May 14 on charges of accidental homicide.

The humidifier disinfectant case, one of the worst scandals involving a consumer product using chemicals, came to light after four pregnant women died of lung problems from unknown causes in 2011.

A government-led investigation confirmed a connection between the people who died of lung problems and the chemicals used to clean household humidifiers.

South Korea confirmed 221 people as victims. Among them, 177 had used Oxy products. Out of 90 deaths, 70 are believed to have been caused by products made by Oxy.