• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.193-204
• /
• 2021

Objectives: In January 2021, the former heads of the manufacturer SK Chemical and the vendor Aekyung were acquitted for manufacturing and selling humidifier disinfectant (HD) containing 5-chloro-2-methylisothiazol-3(2H)-one/2-methylisothiazol-3(2H)-one (CMIT/MIT). In this article, we analyzed the rationale used in this judgement in the light of scientific consideration. Methods: The sentencing document for the judgements was obtained from the Korea Supreme Court Service. In particular, the judgements made by the court related to the toxicological and individual association with HD perspectives were discussed based on scientific evidence. Results: The ruling stated that the necessary conditions for causality between CMIT/MIT and such diseases were not met based on the fact that asthma and lung damage were not found in the inhalation exposure animal experiments. The judgment overlooked the inevitable limitations of using animal experiments for verifying health effects in humans, which are often inconsistent with the observations in animals. Among 11 governmentaffirmed lung injury cases with CMIT/MIT usage, three patients' humidifier disinfectant-associated lung injury (HDLI) pathology proved that CMIT/MIT could cause lung injury similar to that caused by PHMG and PGH. In addition, five children showed decreased lung function related to damage caused by humidifier disinfectant exposure. Conclusions: We conclude that there is sufficient evidence supporting the assertion that HDs containing CMIT/MIT cause lung injuries, including asthma, contrary to the court's decision.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.143-174
• /
• 2019

Our Constitution obliges the state to protect the health of the people, and the Medical Law, which embodied Constitution, sets out in detail the matters related to open the medical institution, and one of them is to prohibit the operation of multiple medical institutions. By the way, virtually multiple medical institutions could be opened and operated because the Supreme Court had interpreted that several medical institutions could be opened if medical activities were not performed directly at the additional medical institution which was opened under the another doctor's license. However, some health care providers opened the several medical institutions with another doctor's license for the purpose of the maximization of profit, and did illegal medical cares like the unfair luring of patients, over-treatment, and commission treatment. Also, realistic problems such as the infringed health rights have arisen. Accordingly, lawmakers had come to amend the Medical Law to readjust the system of opening for medical institution so that medical personnel could not open or operate more than one medical institution for any reason. For this reason, the Constitutional Court recently declared a constitutional decision through a long period of in-depth deliberation because the constitutional petition and the adjudication on the constitutionality of statutes had been filed on whether Article 33 paragraph 8 of the revised medical law is unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court acknowledged the "justice of purpose" in view of the importance of public medical institutions, of the prevention from seduction of for-profit patients and from over-treatment, and of the fact that health care should not be the object of commercial transactions. Given the risk that medical personnel might be subject to outside capital, the concern that the holder of the medical institution's opening certificate and the actual operator may be separated, the principle that the human body and life should not be just a means, and the current system's inability to identify over-treatment, it also acknowledged the 'minimum infringement'. Furthermore, The Constitutional Court judged it is constitutional in compliance with the principle of restricting fundamental rights, such as 'balance of legal interests'. In this regard, legislative complements are needed in order to effectively prevent the for-profit management and the over-treatment the Constitutional Court is concerned about. In this regard, consumer groups actively support the need for legislation, and health care providers groups also agree on the need for legislation. Therefore, the legislators should respect the recent Constitutional Court's decision and in the near future complete the complementary legislation to reflect the people's interests.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.3-28
• /
• 2022

Recently, the targets and clauses of negotiation between 'National Health Insurance Service (NHIS)' and Pharmaceutical companies has been expanded. Due to newly adopted 'Quality management clause', 'Compulsory supply maintenance clause' and 'Penalty for breach of contract clause', not only 'Ministry of Health and Wellfare (MOHW)'s 'drug listing' and 'Price cap' announcement, but also 'negotiation between NHIS and pharmaceutical companies' can be a legal sanction to the suppliers. Once secretary of MOHW order NHIS to negotiate with pharmaceutical company, NHIS notify this order to the company and enter into the negotiation. 'The order' exists in the public domain between the government (MOHW) and public institutions (NHIS) and does not constrain the legal rights of companies (Therefore companies cannot pile a lawsuit about the order). However, 'the notice' or 'negotiation' is an act which has a counterpart, can be a target of administrative litigation if the company get some disadvantages from the talks. Negotiations can be divided into four types according to "the target (whether it is listed on the insurance benefit list)" and "the purpose (whether the target is price or conditional)." In particular, negotiations on listed drugs, whose goal is to set unfavorable conditions for companies, can be illegal if there is no price. So we need to consider compensation for the company as an incentive to negotiate.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.29 no.2 s.53
• /
• pp.215-225
• /
• 1996

Decentralization to local governments and amending of Health Center Law are to promote the efforts of health planning at the level of local agencies. In the health facility planning, it is important to take into account that what to be built, where to be located, how far should be service area and so forth, because health facilities are immovable, and require capital as well as personnel and consumable supplies. The aim of our study, answering to the question of 'where to be located?', is to determine the best location of urban health sub-center. At the local level, planning is the matter of finding the best location of specific facilitiy, in relation to population needs. We confine the accessibility, which is basic to location planning, to geographic one. Location-Allocation Model is used to solve the problem where the location is to maximize geographic accessibility. To minimize the weighted travel distance, objective function, $R_k=\sum{\sum}a_{ij}w_{i}d_{ij}$ is used. Distances are measured indirectly by map measure-meter with 1:25,000 Suwon map, and each potential sites, 10 administrative Dongs in Kwonson Gu, Suwon, are weighted by each number of households, total population, maternal age group, child age group, old age group, Relief for the livelihood, and population/primary health clinics. We find that Kuwoon-Dong, Seodun-Dong, Seryu3-Dong, according the descending orders, are best sites which can minimize the weighted distance, and conclude that it is reasonable to determine the location of urban health sub-center among those sites.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2023

Objectives : The aim of this study is to analyze the news articles related to Korean Medicine(KM) and compare trends in news reports from 2018 to 2022. Method : News articles related to KM were collected through the BigKinds, the news bigdata service of the Korea Press Foundation. News reports from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022 were searched. 2,950 news articles out of a total of 12,497 met the inclusion criteria. First, quantitative changes in media coverage were analyzed by year, media outlet, and month. For qualitative analysis, two authors independently coded the content of news articles, discussed them until consensus, and consulted with a third researcher to classify them. In addition, keywords extracted by the BigKind's Topic Rank algorithm were compared and analyzed in each year. Results : The number of news articles on KM decreased by 42% in 2022 compared to 2018. Over a fiveyear period, the Naeil Shinmun reported the most on KM among newspapers, while the Hankyoreh did the least. Among broadcasters, YTN reported the most and SBS did the least. When analyzing the reports by category, the most common was 'treatment', followed by 'prevention' and 'scientification'. As a result of extracting keywords with high weight and frequency, 'immunity' and 'immune system' ranked the first and second in 2018, while 'COVID 19' and 'medical law violation' did in 2022. Conclusion : The decrease in media reports on KM during the COVID-19 epidemic period seems to be due to the limited role of KM in responding to infectious diseases, and efforts to expand the scope of KM can induce increased media reports and social interest.

• Korean Security Journal
• /
• no.14
• /
• pp.465-484
• /
• 2007

Our society's modernization created many opportunities for us to need a private investigation service system. Variation of international environment due to joining in the OECD, opportunity of individual legal, collect evidence during judgement, prevention of damage criminal, security of business in company, free trade economy's system etc and don't need to enumerate how important of introduction of private investigation service system. In addition to there are lots of objection opinions, such as possibility of person's private life, invade of lawyer's area, confliction with investigation team, gap of wealth and poverty that make preponderance of information. So this research can be considerate from objective opinion, and can obtain conclusion just like below. First, private detective agencies that encroach on the individual rights will naturally deteriorate after the implementation of private investigation service system. Through this, the probability of civil rights encroachment will be lower, and for this to happen there needs to be a thorough maintenance of the system. Secondly, mutually beneficial solution should be found not by a conflict between two sides. Detective business sector should not cause social confusion from conflicts with other investigation organization such as police, or investigators, rather, it must get on the demand of the diversified citizen and maintain the diverse sector inter-cooperate right, and to do that law and institution must be made for the base. Thirdly, investigation used depending on the gap between wealth and poverty does not mean the actualization of the rights and interests of the citizen. If the duty of investigation sector is to find the evidence and collect or manufacture of the evidence, then the problems which the nation can't handle will be more enlarged and then finally end up with strengthening the capability of national public security demand.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.225-234
• /
• 2007

This research is based on the purpose of awaking the importance to publicity of terrorism prevention in the environment of neo-terrorism and presenting the direction of effective publicity activities of terrorism prevention in the counter-terrorism system. Government publicity through public media plays a significant role in promoting people's participation and improving the awareness. So, to strengthen the terrorism prevention in environmental changes of terror occurrence, active method available for people must be found as publicity method of terrorism prevention suitable for high information society. For this method, this research argued first about relationship between police organization and public as counter-terrorism system and about effective publicity methods of terrorism prevention through active erection of these relationships. This research suggested the operation method through introduction of e-CRM and etc, with ultimate purpose about maximizing the publicity effect of terrorism prevention by using as the advantage of internet these days as possible. And needs of information service activities and other administration strategies of publicity of terrorism prevention are suggested through enlarging the distribution scope of governmental counter-terrorism information materials by strengthening the national publicity activities and using media.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.24 no.5 s.83
• /
• pp.69-87
• /
• 2006

This article attempts to explore how the women retirees under study were able to continue work until retirement. This study used life histories, especially focusing on daily working lives, and uncovered a number of key issues through in-depth interviews. The main results are as follows: Firstly, the women retirees examined here had been raised as highly educated people, and their strong educational background was a base component for them to have relatively secure careers. Their parents had also supported practically the women retirees during their working lives. In addition, the women retirees had to can out the roles of 'provider' for their original families, procreation families or in-law families, even though they were not given the recognized roles of provider. Secondly, the women retirees had a private infra system to support them with housework and child care. In addition, because they were financially able to employ housemaids, the women retirees did not experience conflicts with their husbands, who took on a neo-traditional sex role. Finally, thanks to relatively good working conditions such as having vacations and being able to come to and leave the office on time, the women retirees were able to continue work until retirement no mean feat in a society which openly practiced gender discrimination.

• Physical Therapy Korea
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.94-105
• /
• 2022

Background: As South Korea enters an aged society, the government has emphasized the need for a soft landing of the older adults into the community after the acute and recovery periods under a national policy of "community care." However, the institutionalization of community rehabilitation services to implement this is insufficient. Japan had already entered an aged society when the Long-Term Care Insurance System was introduced in 2000. Thus, the case of Japan's institutionalization of the system is expected to have implications for us in supplementing a suitable system for the aged society. Objects: This study compared the institutionalization process of the Long-Term Care Insurance System in South Korea and Japan and the services currently being implemented in each country. Methods: To examine the institutionalization process and services of the system, related legal rules and regulations, government reports, and articles were reviewed. To examine the operation status of the system, statistical data provided by each country's government were analyzed. Results: Japan recognized the importance of community rehabilitation even before the enactment of Long-Term Care Insurance. Thus, community rehabilitation services, such as home-visit rehabilitation and health facilities, were already stipulated in the law. Under such institutional legacy, Long-Term Care Insurance was able to establish a service system, which balanced welfare and health-related services, including various types of services with enhanced rehabilitation functions. In South Korea, rehabilitation policies were not much considered in the process of institutionalizing the system; thus, it was composed mainly of services focusing on care and recuperation. Conclusion: In order to realize community care, rehabilitation services need to be developed in Long-Term Care Insurance System in various forms such as home-visit services, daily services, short stay, and facility services.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.525-534
• /
• 2021

In order to provide high-quality medical services to the public and contribute to the improvement of public health, it is necessary to enact an independent law according to the work of radiological technologists. Therefore, this study intends to review the regulations related to radiographers in the Medical Service Technologists, etc. Act. and to present opinions and directions for enactment of individual laws for radiological technologists. An online survey was conducted to 15,000 radiological technologists working in medical institutions and education sites in Korea; 1,027 people (6.85%) responded. The questionnaire consisted of 3 questions on demographic characteristics, 5 questions on the scope of work, and 12 questions on the revision of the Medical Service Technologists, etc. Act. and the establishment of the Radiological Technologist Independent Act. Reliability and factor analysis were performed on 9 questions measured on a Likert 5-point scale in "Revision of the Medical Service Technologists, etc. Act. and the establishment of the Radiological echnologist Independent Act" among the questionnaire items. Reliability for the total 9 questions was Chronbach α=0.728. There was a high perception that the regulations related to radiological technologists were insufficient in the current Medical Service Technologists, etc. Act., and the perception that examinations performed by radiological technologists at medical institutions were included in medical practice was high. If the Radiological Technologist Independent Act is enforced, a high percentage of respondents said that they could receive legal protection through the institutionalization of the scope of work, that the status of radiological technologists would be improved, and the scope of work would be expanded. The response that the scope of work of radiological technologists should be included was the highest at 96.6%. In the analysis according to demographic characteristics, it was found that 96.7% of the respondents were agreed regardless of the factors. Radiological technologists will have to work hard to secure the public health by coping with new radiology devices, procedures and treatment methods. Therefore, as the results of this study, it is expected that the enactment and implementation of the Radiological Technologist Independent Act will contribute to the improvement of the quality of treatment for patients and to the public health.