#290: The Silent Killer of South Korea That Murdered 1500 Young People

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Episode Title

#290: The Silent Killer of South Korea That Murdered 1500 Young People

Episode Summary In this episode, the hosts delve into a chilling true crime story from South Korea involving a mysterious illness that led to the deaths of over 1,500 young children and pregnant women. Beginning with the tragic case of the Lee family, the episode uncovers a public health crisis exacerbated by a toxic humidifier sterilizer that was marketed as safe. The episode reveals a detailed investigation into the cause of this illness, the failure of medical authorities to respond adequately, and the devastating impact on countless families.

Key Highlights

The Lee Family's Tragedy

Initial Incident: The episode opens in May 2009 with the Lee family, whose three-month-old baby, Lee, dies after his lungs solidify due to an unknown illness.
Rapid Decline: Only days later, the mother, Mrs. Lee, collapses and ultimately dies, leaving Mr. Lee alone to grieve.
Medical Mystery: Doctors are baffled by the rapid deterioration of both family members, sparking fears of a contagious disease.

Dr. Hong's Investigation

Observation of Patterns: Dr. Hong, a physician, begins to notice a disturbing trend of infants and young mothers presenting with similar symptoms of lung failure.
Data Gathering: He reaches out to colleagues and finds that many have observed similar cases, raising alarms about a potential epidemic.
CDC Involvement: Eventually, he contacts the Korean CDC, but their response is slow and inadequate.

Mysterious Illness Outbreak

Symptoms: Victims present with symptoms resembling severe lung damage, with many families using humidifiers to alleviate colds.
Public Health Crisis: The illness is particularly lethal for infants and pregnant women, leading to widespread panic across South Korea.

Toxic Humidifier Sterilizers

Humidifier Sterilizers: Investigation leads to the discovery that a widely used humidifier sterilizer, called "Sak Sak," was contaminated with the chemical PHMG, which is toxic when inhaled.
Corporate Responsibility: Oxy (now known as RB Group) and the chemical supplier Yugo pass blame without taking full responsibility for their products.

Victim Impact Stories

Survivor Accounts: Various families recount the harrowing effects of the illness on their children, detailing lifelong health complications and emotional trauma.
Community Response: Victims’ families hold protests and seek accountability from both the companies and government officials.

Legal and Societal Repercussions

Corporate Accountability: Oxy faces criticism for prioritizing profits over safety, eventually leading to recalls and limited compensation offers to victims.
Judicial Outcomes: Courts struggle with holding the companies accountable; many victims feel neglected by the legal system.

Cultural Shift

Public Awareness: Following the crisis, South Korean families become more cautious about using chemicals in household cleaning products, leading to a cultural shift towards natural alternatives.
Ongoing Advocacy: Survivors and victim families continue to advocate for stronger safety regulations and recognition of their struggles.

Key Takeaways

Failure of Medical Systems: The episode highlights significant gaps in the medical response to emerging health threats and the importance of timely investigations.
Corporate Irresponsibility: The negligence demonstrated by Oxy and Yugo raises critical questions about corporate ethics and consumer safety.
Human Cost of Industrial Oversight: The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the lasting impact that industrial negligence can have on families and communities.

Conclusion The episode concludes with a call for greater awareness regarding the safety of household products and the implications of corporate decisions on public health. It prompts listeners to reflect on how similar crises could be averted in the future by prioritizing transparency and accountability.

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:01In a South Korean emergency room, this is May of 2009, there was the Lee family that were anxiously waiting for help. You know, it just seemed like the parents, so it's Mr. and Mrs. Lee, their new parents, maybe about 20 something years old, and they have their three month old baby, their three month old infant. And like these parents, their dark circles under their eyes, they look like they're being pulled down by gravity itself. They look, they look beat. Their eyes are frantic. I mean, it looks like they had been fueling themselves with just adrenaline alone. And, you know, the hospital, they get a lot of these parents and they get all these parents that are new.

0:40and they're scared and they're like, my kid is coughing. I don't know what to do. I feel like my kid is in trouble. Can you please help? And usually it's nothing, right? Usually. This case wasn't that. Three-month-old baby Lee was perfectly healthy the day of his birth. He went to all of his checkups, perfectly healthy, until just about a week ago. According to the parents, he started having these little hiccups. He would hiccup and at first it was cute. They're like, oh my God, he knows how to hiccup. and then slowly these hiccups would morph into these coughing fits. He would wake himself up in pain from his little naps and just coughing up a storm.

1:20They were so worried. I mean, the way that he was screaming was ear piercing. Something was clearly wrong. Nurses checked his heart rate. They took scans. They put him on an IV. Meanwhile, there were multiple doctors crowding in a room. So this is like an office room. The parents aren't there. The patients aren't there. And one by one, another doctor would come in and they'd be like, hey, look at these scans. They would stare at the scan, hands on their hips. And then another doctor would come and nobody could put their finger on it. They had no idea what was going on. The baby's lungs were basically gone.

1:57Yeah, not all the way gone, but something really, really strange and bizarre was happening. His lung tissues were turning solid, hard as a rock. which means that, okay, think about it. Your lungs have to expand to take in air and if they turn into stone, it won't expand and you can't take in air. Imagine the feeling of wearing a corset made out of stone two sizes too small. It's like the feeling that even if you try with all of your might to take in some air and lift your chest and expand it, you're not getting oxygen. It's that feeling but probably amplified to the 100th degree. Doctors have no idea what to do.

2:36They'd never seen anything like this. They don't know how to help Baby Lee. Ultimately, Baby Lee passed May 5th of 2009 on Children's Day. He was less than 100 days old. And nobody knew why he had passed. What had happened? Did someone do something? Was it potentially foul play? What was going on? What could have possibly happened in the past three months? Just four days later, the Lee couple are back at the hospital. This time Mr. Lee is screaming She's not breathing, she's not breathing You have to help her, do something, do something Someone hurry He said that he found his wife passed out on the bathroom floor So the hospital takes her in And again, those very same doctors are huddled in the room And they're staring at her scans And it doesn't make sense Her lung tissues were completely white Meaning that her lungs were solidifying When they walked into her patient room Where she's laying on the hospital bed it looked like a ghost was sitting on her chest and manually choking her.

3:37And she couldn't take in air. No matter what they did, she couldn't get oxygen into her lungs. Every single person in that room was so concerned about her, except for herself. She didn't care. She wasn't concerned about saving her life. She just kept trying to grab at the doctor's hands. And she was half asking, half begging them. Do I have some sort of disease? and did I give it to my baby? Did I kill my baby? Tell me right now, did I kill my baby? And the doctors, they could only attempt to comfort her, you know, but they have no idea what was going on to her baby, but also to her. Mrs. Lee refused all treatment.

4:19She believed that she had been the reason her son had died. She had caught something, transmitted it to her precious little boy and she wanted to face the consequences. She wanted to be with her son. One month later, she would pass away too. And only Mr. Lee was left. In the matter of a month, his whole family was gone. They had been wiped out by some mysterious illness that the doctors could not even pinpoint. And so by himself, he goes back to his empty home. He slumps down the wall and he just puts his head in his hands and he starts sobbing until his body is exhausted. Someone had killed his son and wife and he was sure of it.

5:02both of them were healthy, and in the matter of the past month, both of them had now been buried. He was going to find out whoever did this, and they were going to pay. As always, full show notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com. This case is absolutely crazy. There is no other way to describe it. The death toll is probably in the thousands, but we can't even really be sure how many people have been impacted. Now, this case did take place in South Korea, so we had our wonderful Korean researchers help assist with this case. And I do want to give a quick side note. Some of the names in today's case are not real.

5:36Those families have requested anonymity. All of the perpetrator names are real. Most of the victims' names are real. And a few of the family members have been very, very public and very vocal about what happened to them. So with that being said, let's get into it. Dr. Hong was a doctor in a busy part of South Korea. He's finishing up his rounds at the hospital. He's on edge. He's agitated. Like something is very much bothering this man and he can't seem to shake it. Even the nurses, they're staying out of his way. I mean, to put it very lightly, the guy is in a salty, sour mood. And with each door that opens and each patient that he sees and that he talks to, the sweat beads on his forehead, they're just multiplying and drenching his whole face.

6:21And he's thinking to himself, it's happening again. The same thing happened last year and it is back. He doesn't even know what it was or what it is or who it was. It was more of a feeling than a scientific medical observation, but it was back and it was killing people. Random kids, infants, newborns, toddlers, specifically pregnant women would all come in with similar symptoms. And ultimately, by the time that they walked in through those hospital doors, they were dying. They were dying and there was nothing that Dr. Hong could do to help them. He would turn on the news after every shift and he's like, I think that I'm losing my mind.

7:01I think I'm going crazy by myself because I see the same symptoms. I see the same thing over and over again and nobody is talking about it. There's not a single news source talking about some sort of mystery illness or a new pandemic or epidemic. Nothing. And he doesn't know what will happen. He has no idea what's happening. But it's the most curious thing. It's not even like people are coming in with heart attacks or people are coming in with colon cancer. These are things that maybe big picture wise, there's some sort of trend that's happening amongst the human population. But with this young, healthy, newborn babies are coming in and their lungs look like they had been mining like miners lungs for the past 100 years.

7:42And they had only been alive for three months. It looked like they were sitting in the chimney of a factory and just breathing in that air. And he's like, I'm going crazy. this doesn't even make any sense and nobody is talking about it and it's been happening year after year always around the spring season how many years for the past like two to three years and every year it gets worse and worse and worse and he's like am i losing my mind i mean of course when the first few kids came in he thought maybe maybe because of how bizarre it is maybe the parents are doing something maybe it's like munchausen by proxy right maybe they want attention and they're making their kids sick deliberately to get some sort of emotional fulfillment.

8:27But that doesn't make sense. The numbers were outrageous here. Then he thought, okay, maybe there's someone poisoning baby food because they're all infants and the moms are maybe eating the baby food. They're taking little bites to test out the warmth and to make sure it's good. Maybe that's what's going on. But that doesn't make sense either because that again would be on the news. Was it just his hospital? was maybe the water supply in this immediate area. It was being poisoned, the water supply. He could try his best to investigate, but I mean, he was way in over his head. Trying to find the connection between these victims was rough.

9:01Like, how can you even find the connection? These aren't people that went to the same school or anything. Would people even remember every little thing that they bought at the store or ate recently? Like, how do you even deem something significant enough to tell the doctors? Most things fly under the radar. door so before he can put on a Sherlock Holmes hat another patient walks in through the door Sehun was pregnant and she's a first-time mom she was so excited okay I mean the couple did everything early they were early in their prep they set up the nursery they prepared for birth focusing on anything and everything that has to do with health she was about eight months pregnant a month away from giving birth when her doctor is looking literally belly out, ultrasound, and she just freezes.

9:48I just, the baby's organs look white, which the only things that should look white are your bones because the density. It looked as if the baby's lungs were solid, like a rock. What? And so she tells the mom, I mean, I don't think that anyone will be able to save your baby, even if you follow through with the pregnancy. I think that the only reason that your baby is alive right now is because they don't need to use their own lungs because they're inside the uterus. But when that baby is born, there is no chance of lung functionality outside the womb. None. The child ended up passing away shortly after being born, which like if you know anyone who's experienced this, I had a family member who went through this, but it is like the most traumatic thing ever to hold your baby in your arms, knowing that they might not make it or to even just really walk out of that hospital without your child.

10:47But there is so much evidence that you're supposed to have this baby. Like you have a home with the nursery and even your own body shows evidence of you need to come home with the baby. It is the equivalent of putting your heart through a shredder. So shortly after this, Seon realized she's pregnant again. and she and her husband, they don't even know how to feel. Like, yeah, they're excited, but they're so terrified. I mean, even the first time they were pregnant, they were so paranoid. They were making sure that everything she was eating was organic and perfectly safe for the baby. Even candles they were lighting, perfume that she was wearing, they did everything to the T.

11:23And this is a high-risk pregnancy, she feels like. I mean, I can only imagine how on edge the couple are feeling about every tiny little thing. Sae-lin felt like she had done something wrong the first time Like it was her fault She wondered if she ate healthier, ate better, took more supplements Did everything that the doctors and all these random ajummas these old ladies tell her to do If she did everything, maybe this time her child would be fine Her child was not fine The same thing happened again As soon as the baby's lungs were developed The OBGYN told Sae-lin that her baby's lungs would not be functional outside of the womb this baby wouldn't make it either.

12:02So this time, Sae-yeon is like, okay, it's 100 % my fault. Side note, it's not. Like, it's never her fault, right? But she's thinking, it's gotta be me. I mean, there's no other reason. There's something in my genetics, there's something in my body that I am not fit enough to make another human being. I am not a good mom. I can't be a parent. But these doctors, they didn't think that. They felt like something was out there targeting South Korean families. So Dr. Hong, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know who or what is doing this. So he does the only thing that he can think of doing. And he's kind of like a madman, right?

12:37Dr. Hong compiles a list of every single email, every single person that he graduated medical school with, every colleague that he had ever briefly nodded in the hospital halls with. He went online and looked up a list of random doctors from random hospitals. It didn't even matter what field they were in. it could have been dermatologists, plastic surgeons. As long as they had MD, he was going to find their email and email them. He starts mass emailing about a new silent killer. He didn't know what or who it was, but whatever it is, it's turning baby's lungs into stone. What does he say though?

13:12He's like, I need help. I think I'm losing my mind. I don't know what's going on. Please tell me, is this just me? Is there something in our local water supply that's poisoning these people but that's weird because i'm not getting a bunch of healthy young people coming in i'm literally getting infants babies young moms and maybe some elderly people but like how can something it's not the air it's not the water like i'm gonna go crazy when was this again this is in like 2011 wow yeah so chuno's mom okay and then then he slowly starts getting all these emails back of random doctors that he's never met before being like, I actually had a case very similar.

13:52So these are some of the stories. Juno's mom felt like she was feeling a bit paranoid. You know, she tried to talk herself out of this decision, but I mean, it's 2am. She just wants to get some peace of mind. Half out of anxiety and half out of South Korea's emphasis on manners and politeness. She's smiling at the emergency room doctor. Like, I'm sure it's nothing. I'm probably overreacting, but I'm a new mom. Anyway, my son Chunal caught a cold maybe two weeks ago. I thought it was getting better. I've been trying to do everything at home and I feel like it's getting worse. I think that he just needs some medicine or some sort of checkup.

14:29Last night, it felt like his breathing was shallow. And, you know, the first night when he caught the cold, He was bloody scream crying, like just, oh, bloody murder, right? Now, it seems almost like he's too exhausted to even cry. And I guess that was worrying me. We did keep his room warm. We kept his room humid. We had the humidifier on. We've been putting him on like a soft, bland food diet. I just don't know. The doctor pulled out his stethoscope and the mom was right. Breathing was shallow. Okay, I'm just going to have to do some CT scans. He comes back with two scans. The first one he shows Mrs.

15:10Lee and he states, you know, these are what healthy lungs are supposed to look like. And from the untrained eye, it might be even hard to spot. They kind of disappear into the x-rays. Now these are what Chuno's lungs look like. And now Mrs. Lee has no idea what she's looking at, but it's not looking good. I mean, it looks nothing like the healthy lungs. His lungs are white in color. They look like bone. Within days, baby Juno died in the hospital. He was supposed to have his 돌잔ji, which is your one-year birthday party next month, but now he was gone. His mom would have to go home, arms empty, walk into his empty, lifeless room, turn off the sound machine, click off the humidifier, turn off the lights, before she slumped to the ground, sobbing.

15:56Then that doctor said another patient walked through the hospital doors, and they sat with the patients as they explained the scans and they said the same thing. We just thought it was a, and the doctor said, a common cold? Yes, how did you know? Anyway, we thought it was a common cold so we were treating our baby at home and we kept the room warm, we kept it humid, we had the humidifier running, we made sure to feed him a diet of soft bland foods and now our baby is sick but also the mother of the child, the mother of the baby is sick. both were admitted into the hospital for intensive care. The mom would recover but the baby wouldn't.

16:34And they would constantly blame themselves. These parents would go home crying about how they transferred some sort of unknown virus or bacteria to their kid and that is why their kid died. They blamed themselves for going out or going to work too early on. These doctors had no idea what to tell these parents. So these doctors are coming back to the emails one by one sharing their stories. At one point, one doctor was like, I had 17 patients that were admitted for breathing problems. Their x-ray scans showed the exact same thing. Out of 17 of them, 13 of them were either children or young pregnant woman.

17:11And five of them died within like that day. So they're like, something out here is killing people and nobody is talking about it. So Dr. Hong is like, well, I'm going to talk about it. He calls up the Korean Center for Disease Control, the Korean CDC. and he presents them with all the information that he's gathered so far. And he's like, listen, I'm going to make it easy for you guys. I've already narrowed it down. It's happening during the spring season, mostly in April. I don't know what's going on there. It seems like it's airborne and it's attacking the lungs, literally turning them into stone.

17:41So you're welcome. Please go find out what's going on and let's save these people. He also reaches out to bacteriologists to see if there's any new bacteria or virus in the air. and they get back to him and they say, absolutely nothing. No, we have been monitoring and there is nothing in the air. So you say it's airborne, but we are testing in common public areas. We're testing in cities in the little like countryside. We're testing everywhere and there is no new known bacteria, nothing. The CDC, they didn't even respond at all. It would take two years for them to start investigating the deaths and the deaths didn't stop during those two years.

18:19Essentially, two valuable years to stop whatever was happening was wasted And during that time, more kids were dying And then finally, the news channels got into it Dr. Hong reached out to the media and by 2011, like the end The news starts picking up on the trend of infants dying And they reported a lung disease with no cause nor any treatment or any cure Are targeting groups of families The medical field is warning of possible contagion Can you imagine a message like that going out? it's giving the purge. I mean people lost their minds. The public are like what are you saying there's no cure for a mystery lung disease and now we're gonna go out and it's contagious and you have no idea even what this virus is and so now the CDC is like okay maybe we need to get involved so that you guys can calm down.

19:05Everything has been vague. Let's clear some things up. The CDC comes out to say don't worry about it guys. This doesn't concern us. This doesn't concern you because it's only attacking pregnant women and young children. And the whole nation collectively loses their mind. They're like, what are you talking about? Don't be concerned because the world's most vulnerable population are getting attacked, but like we should be fine. It only pisses off everyone else. So now the CDC, they finally open an investigation into the deaths and the CDC, they start interviewing each of the family members of the victims and asking them questions.

19:38They were waiting for like an aha moment. They would sit there and they would kind of smirk and they'd say, well, do you smoke? No, we don't. No one in the family smokes. Are you sure? Are you sure the husband doesn't smoke, smoke around the kid? It's okay if they do. You can tell us. No, I mean, absolutely not. So they thought, okay, maybe it's like some sort of food, a gadget, maybe like a special dish soap. They were asking things like, where did you go? Who did you see? What kind of things do you use on a typical basis? Does anyone else smoke? Does anyone do any drugs? What's wild is that most of the families interviewed, they were actually pretty concerned about their family's health because these are young families or young moms with infants and children.

20:18They're like really helicopter momming it. They want to get all the organic stuff. They want to get the best of the best, 100 % cotton clothes for the kids. They were really intense. And almost every single family took on a very hands-on approach. So they all sat there for the CDC interviews and answered all the questions. Do you sanitize your kids toys when you drop them on the ground? Yes, of course. Absolutely. And you go to all the required checkups for your children. Yes. And we don't let our family members kiss our children. We go to the checkups. We don't let strangers hold our children.

20:48We even have humidifiers in our children's rooms because the winters get so dry. We keep it close to the crib and we make sure that the room is always warm, that it's well ventilated. Okay, good. But are you aware that humidifiers can easily, yes, harbor bacteria. We clean it regularly with a government approved humidifier sterilizer. So the CDC, they check their notes. The area of where the patients came from differed. The brand of formula that they bought or the baby food that they bought differed. There was just one thing that kept being written down in their notes over and over again to the point where it might as well have been underlined in red.

21:28Can you guess? The humidifier. They all used a humidifier. And that's not crazy, okay? Almost every single household in South Korea has a humidifier. The winters in South Korea are brutal. Okay, but it's not even just the winters. We went to Korea in April and my mom was like, you better pack your thickest moisturizer. I have oily combination skin and I leaned more towards oily. We get to Korea. I had to bring a separate different moisturizer, a thick one that would normally break me out at home. But it was so dry. If I didn't do that, you could literally see my skin flakes dusting off in the day.

22:03So during springtime, most South Korean families will have humidifiers on to help with their chap lips, their dry skin, and just to help fight off like the colds and stuff that come with dry and tired nasal pathways, you know? But the mechanisms of a humidifier are breeding grounds for bacteria. Whenever you keep water in a closed container for a long time, 100 % bacteria and mold is going to form eventually. It's just a matter of when. Humidifiers are completely safe if you clean and you dry them after every use. But let's be real, like who's cleaning and drying them after every use? If you don't do that, bacteria and mold is going to come out in the steam.

22:41You will essentially be breathing in moist, moldy air. And that can make you super sick, sicker than dry air. But whenever the CDC sat there on their little high horse trying to be smart asses like, oh, did you know that the humidifier is a breeding ground for bacteria? All the parents already knew all of this. This is not groundbreaking information in a country where humidifiers are common. Nobody is sitting, breathing in moldy air. Every single family looked at the CDC and stated, of course I know this. And in order to combat this, we bought government approved humidifier sterilizers. The CDC employees, they look at each other.

23:17And when asked about the brand of humidifier used, the families all had different answers. Some use this brand, others use this brand. but when they all were asked about what humidifier sterilizer they used most of them said oh sak sak sak sak means like like brisk brisk it's like how you describe something like clean like sak sak tako which means like do it very clean shiny that's the brand yes but it's actually owned by the korean branch of oxy huge uk brand i'm sure you know some of their products like air wick the car fresheners the air fresheners lysol the disinfectant cleaners so it's owned by a uk brand yeah what you're saying this is a korean branch but it's basically oxy yeah okay yeah so they sell it in korea they don't really sell it anywhere else because i don't think that the uk population and the american population use that many humidifiers to warrant such a humidifier sterilizer but they they sell it in korea

24:23now humidifier sanitizers are not new inventions they're also not solely available in South Korea this one was in the U.S. you can get humidifier sterilizers but it's um it's like a really intense one so basically what you do is you like put this it's a dish soap basically and you dilute it in a bunch of water and you have to soak your humidifier tank in there and then you got to dry it completely And then you got to like run a fake one and then run a new. It's like a whole process. It's like a full day clean. It's not a simple one, right? Well, in South Korea, they're super advanced because so much of the population uses humidifiers on a seasonal basis.

25:00They created one where you don't have to rinse it out. You just put a bit of this, you drop it into the water tank of the humidifier, and it will not only humidify the air in the room, but it will also purify the air that's coming out. It will kill the bacteria in the water. It's a two in one. So you just drop a few drops in there. Yeah. That's it. That's it. And it was flying off the shelves because you remember how during the initial lockdowns that we recently experienced, everyone was buying disinfectants. Every winter, these things would be so hard to keep in stock because people loved it.

25:37Because it's, you don't want moldy, humidified air straight into your face. You also don't want to go through the process of cleaning it and it takes all day. The sterilizers were also advertised as family safe and had government seals on it, indicating that it passed all the necessary government safety test. So that means it can't just be some bullshit chemical in a bottle that this company is selling for profit. It at least has to be safe enough to use. So that's what the CDC thought. They're like, OK, I mean, I get it. Everyone's using suck suck. But come on, it's got a government seal, right?

26:10But the more interviews they do, the more they kept coming across the same exact story Everything was fine. I left my wife at home to rest and take care of the baby. I went to work Came home ate dinner. You know, my wife is not the type to get into anything outrageous She doesn't hang out with dangerous people She doesn't even go out to areas where she can catch an infection since we have a newborn baby. We're very cautious She stays at home Baby has his own crib We even have a humidifier that we always keep on for our son and then you notice that your son started to feel ill yeah at first we thought it was something that we could do with home remedies so we put him on a bland diet brought the humidifier closer to his crib so he was facing the crib and we thought maybe his airways were so dry because of how cold it's been yeah so when they cough they think they need more huge they need the humidifier closer to the baby or to whoever is sick because i do that too yeah because that's what they say when you When you get dry and cough?

Read the full transcript

27:07Yes. You stick the humidifier like literally to the point where my face would have moisture droplets on it because I just want it that close to me because I'm like, this is probably going to help, right? And then slowly it gets to, not even slowly, within the span of the week, that baby is in the ER and the CT scans show that the lungs are completely solidified and there is nothing to do to help this child. Oh my God. I can't even imagine when the parents found out. Oh, oh, it's bad. Like, yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, yeah, we're going to get to that. So the CDC, they investigate what the hell is going on with these humidifiers and the humidifier sterilizers.

27:46I mean, clearly that is the key to all of this. It is the one consistent thing that everyone is doing. And it was taking so long to identify because again, in Korea, using a humidifier is as common as taking a shower. It's that common. It's not something that someone will go, oh, you know what? Actually, on second thought, I did use a humidifier this week. And I'm sure you guys are picking what I'm throwing down. But again, this is 2011. And even now, I feel like I still kind of fall for this whole, what? No, it should be safe. It's made by this huge, massive company. There's no way that they would risk a lawsuit by knowingly selling something that's dangerous for human consumption.

28:25That's crazy. And every day we are shocked by the newest updates. We can't use certain floss anymore because they have poisonous forever chemicals that we're just shoving deep into our sensitive gums and letting straight into our bloodstream. We can't use certain candles anymore that are super fragranced because apparently the super fragrance ones are just poisonous chemicals that make it smell like roses. We can't use certain eye drops anymore because I don't know they'll make you go blind because they have some sort of bacteria in them. We can't even drink overpriced bottled water because it has microplastics that we're collecting credits.

28:57I feel like every time you turn on the news, there is something new and you're like, oh, okay. But back then in 2011, there was way less of that skepticism. It was up to the companies and the governments to make sure that their products were safe for consumers. And we're not chemists, you know? So you can see where this is going. The humidifier sterilizer that had a government stamp of approval, if you will, on it effectively created gas chambers for young families and killed over a thousand people. The cleaner inside the bottle that was supposed to be used inside of the humidifier that was just pumping out misty fog into the tight enclosed spaces of family homes, it was like snorting.

29:39Imagine you got a glass of industrial strength rug cleaner and you snorted it. You didn't even drink it, you snorted it. Wait, wait, wait. You're saying like by putting a couple drops in there, you're basically snorting like industrial solutions. Yes, but I don't even want to say basic. Yeah, basically, because guess what that cleaner was? What is it? Industrial rug cleaner. How? Like why? So what happened? Let's talk about the chemical. It's called PHMG. That's the chemical in the sterilizer. Decades ago in the 90s, a company called Yugong in South Korea released a disinfectant liquid sterilizer into the market.

30:25Yugong is a chemical supplier, so they're not releasing this new sterilizer into the public market. They're not selling at grocery stores or anything like that. It's going to be sold to other companies. So usually other cleaning companies or industrial businesses, which would then use these chemicals in their own products or potentially sell them again. Now, at this point, the chemical that they created was called PHMG and they had done no government reviews or safety tests yet. So there was no government labels of safety on there. And Yukong just wanted to sell it to other companies in bulk wholesale.

30:56That's where Oxy RB comes in. Oxy. Yes. The one I think they're just known as RB group now, the Wreck-It Ben Kaiser group. It's like a mega corporation that you literally cannot even go into a grocery store or target without seeing their products. They dominate every shelf of every cleaning supply aisle. They also have like a pharmaceuticals branch. I mean, it's crazy. They own Airwick, Durex, Lysol, Mucinex. Side note, I believe RB Group is actually one of the manufacturers that are paying massive settlements for the opioid crisis in the US. Recently, the RB Group was fined like$1.4 billion in the US to settle all civil and criminal probes over their marketing of opioids.

31:36Yeah, so. so I mean I feel like that should tell you enough about this company um it's really hard not to buy their products though because they do dominate in the market but anyway RB Group goes to Yugong and is like hey I want to purchase a boatload of this chemical PHMG and they state that they're going to use it for industrial cleaning products to clean rugs so like not even at home this is not something you can buy as a consumer you're like oh my god my dog peed on my rug let me go buy a rug cleaner. No, you're probably getting a bottle of Folex. This is like when you take your rug to a certified professional rug cleaner and they've got these crazy machines, crazy safety equipment, and they've got some industrial strength cleaners that you can never get at home.

32:21And they're going to charge you an arm and a leg. That's the level of cleaning I'm talking about. So they know exactly what they're buying. Yeah. They're like, they know what this is for. Yeah. Okay So I mean this is crazy right It's not for little old Stephanie Who found out recently that you can't mix bleach and vinegar Okay not like recently but still Alarmingly late it creates toxic gas fumes and you could die So they specifically stated Wait Oh you just found out Yeah Huh Really Yeah but we don't keep bleach in the house maybe that's why Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah exactly So they specifically stated to Yugo, yeah, we're going to be using it as an industrial strength rug cleaner, which, you know, I highly doubt that Yugo really cared as long as they're making a profit off of this.

33:10Now, this deal opens up a ton of doors for Yugo. They have this massive company as big as Oxy, a global megacorp for cleaning supplies and even pharmaceuticals that are buying from Yugo. They've got the street credit. Now, this is putting them on the map and giving them the credibility that they need. if rb group was purchasing from them okay these companies are i'm getting really confused who is who right now you go who's you go so you going is the korean company that made the chemical and oxy now known as rb group okay so oxy okay oxy okay and if this company as big as oxy a global megacorp for cleaning supplies and even pharmaceuticals are purchasing from this south korean chemical company called yugong that's putting them on the map that's putting yugong on the map there it's giving them the street cred that they need the credibility everything they're now selling a bunch of products to a bunch of people so a korean company created this cleaning solution yes for rugs yes and this medical they never stated for rugs what did they create it for an industrial cleaning solution oh for like heavy duty cleaning yes purpose and this medical company big big big big medical company well they also own cleaning like they own the cleaning sector this mega corporation reached out say i want to buy these chemicals from you from korea yes and now that's the contract is so big it's putting this korean company on the map is what you're saying and now a lot of these korean companies that sell household items or industrial items they're like oh we want to buy from you the chemical supplier that they just bought from okay okay so yugong they do not sell anything in stores they are wholesale chemical company they don't even really sell cleaning products they don't even sell like industrial cleaning products they just straight up sell chemicals yeah and they're like these chemicals clean shit and then these other companies will be like let me buy that and mix it with this and then I'm going to sell this as a cleaner.

35:16Okay. Okay. Got it. Yes. Okay. Understood. Yes. So basically that's what's happening, right? And two years after the initial order from Oxy, Yugong submits this chemical, PHMG, to the Ministry of Environment in the Department of South Korea for approval. They're like, Hey, we created this chemical and now we just want to get it certified so that we can sell it to more suppliers. Okay. They're like, Okay, sounds good. What are you using it for? Oh, it's going to be like an industrial rug cleaner because that's what Oxy said they're using it for. So they're like, okay, Oxy must know something. That's what they're using it for.

35:53The government runs their tests and they come back with a shiny new non-toxic sticker. These non-toxic stickers are very misleading because non-toxic does not really mean non-toxic. Okay. The government only tests for the intended purpose of the product, which makes sense. So when they're told it's going to be used as an industrial strength rug cleaner, the government tests to make sure that if by accident, even with the proper cleaning gear, like gloves, because it's an industrial strength cleaner, if they get a little bit, splash a little bit on their skin, are they going to have a chemical burn and lose a limb?

36:26No? Okay, non-toxic. They do not test per se for consumption or inhalation of the product, because if you're out here drinking industrial strength rug cleaner from a rug cleaner bottle on purpose that's not really the government's problem or the company's problem that's a personal problem so you go they get this approved with a non-toxic seal for this specific chemical for a rug cleaner but the seal does not say that the seal does not say non-toxic as a rug cleaner it just says non-toxic certified by the south korean government they turn around and give this seal to oxy so you you will say that it's the korean company that messed up like they know what they're doing no oh they because oxy is using it as an industrial strength rug cleaner so they're like hey you know that rug cleaning solution that you bought from us or the chemical part of it here it just got certified non-toxic so do whatever you want with it here's the seal so again oxy said i'm using this as a rug cleaner yeah yeah three years after they get this non-toxic seal oxy comes out with a new product in south korea literally only in the South Korean market, a humidifier sterilizer.

37:39This company pumps out products like their livelihoods depend on it. And I mean, I guess it does. So I don't think at first anyone assumed that the industrial rug cleaner and the humidifier sterilizer were related in any way, because this company has opioids and they have pharmaceuticals, they've got Lysol, they've got car fresheners, they make everything. Yeah. Oxy sent out their new humidifier sterilizer for a few tests, one from a lab in the US and one from a lab in the UK. But the humidifier sterilizer hit the shelves before the test even came back. So people are like, why would that happen?

38:10Because you need to run tests before you sell it to the consumer. Yeah. Oxy was like, well, we already have a government approved non-toxic label. So those tests, we just thought it was like confirmation of what we already know. But because we already know what we know, we don't need to know more. That sounds crazy, but that's almost literally their roundabout explanation. But eventually, it seems that both Oxy and Yugong eventually find out what's going on. So we know that Oxy put this industrial strength rug cleaner, PHMG, diluted it, probably added a few other ingredients and put it into a humidifier sterilizer bottle, slapped the government approved non-toxic sticker on the bottles and allegedly paid for a lot of advertising.

38:58Did you guys know when there is a new, like when articles are made about a fear of something going on, a lot of those can be paid for. And I'm not saying that Oxy does this, but a lot of companies do this. So for example, Oxy, this is hypothetical. Again, I'm not saying that Oxy did this. I'm saying companies sometimes do this. that company will pay for a bunch of different journalists, bunch of different writers to write about how dangerous mold is in humidifiers, the silent killer, how there's mold everywhere. The one thing you didn't know about your humidifier, the one thing that keeps you sick when you use your humidifier.

39:42And now everyone's reading these articles thinking, wow, this journalist is doing us a favor and talking about the mold. And now I'm like, oh my God, this is like at the forefront of my mind. There's mold in my humidifier. And then what do you know, a month later, there's a new product on the shelves. It's Oxy's humidifier sterilizer. And in our minds, we don't connect the two. We think, oh, that was just a nice journalist that was warning us. And you know what? Maybe this company read that article and was like, we need to create something for the public. But no, it was all manufactured. It was literally, they had this product.

40:14They wanted to create a demand, even if it was a fake manipulated demand for this product again i'm not saying that oxy did that but these things do happen like you'd be surprised it's kind of crazy they called it safe for families oxy called this humidifier sterilizer like imagine the thought process in these evil people's minds so there's no like when when this hit the shelf there's no regulations there's no fda approved there's nothing it's just on the shelf it goes because they already have the non-toxic seal from the government uh okay yeah so it's like saying um yeah i know i mean i i can see it play out but at the same time like really just just like that like yeah just like that yeah um the government will later change their laws and they have gotten really much more strict about it but i guess their excuse was we, this is such a bad excuse.

41:13The government just pushes it onto different departments. Like the drug and safety department is like, no, no, no. We literally look at our job description. We only test for disinfectants of household surfaces, disinfect, like I'm talking Clorox wipes. This humidifier sterilizer is supposed to be the ministry of environment. And the ministry of environment is like, what are you talking about? We're making sure that the environment doesn't die, why are we in the grocery stores looking at humidifier sterilizers? They made a killing in South Korea, a country where most of the population uses humidifiers.

41:47Now we can argue ignorance because that's what these massive companies will later try to do. Like, oh my god, I didn't know. But don't sue me. In my personal opinion, I feel like they knew. In 2003, Yugong sold PHMG to another huge Australian company. They sold the chemical. So they have to export this chemical from South Korea to Australia. And Australia has very specific laws about importing chemicals. So they had to mention that this chemical may potentially be hazardous upon inhalation. So they knew that PHMG is not good for inhalation. The Australian companies, they take note of that and used PHMG in regular non-vaporous cleaning solutions.

42:28Non-vaporous, So not even like spray bottles. Because that could be very easy to inhale, right? We have no idea if Yugong told Oxy about this inhalation danger or not. Yugong says, we only said that it's dangerous upon inhalation because, I don't know, we were just suspicious. We didn't have proof that it was hazardous. We just like said something. I don't know. We just said what we said. I don't know why we said that. Yeah. What? Yeah, exactly. They stated that they were operating on a hunch. And from there, now we have two potential possibilities. Either they told Oxy or they didn't tell Oxy.

43:04If they didn't, they are arguing that they have no legal responsibility to tell them because they are not operating on proof. And since Oxy told them that they are buying this to make rug cleaners, they don't really need to tell them it's dangerous upon inhalation. It's up to Oxy to make sure that the consumers are not dying from this product. now oxy is stating that they were never told and they just got that non-toxic seal so they just assumed that it was non-toxic bro this is like ridiculous this is almost like like you know two kids messed up and then they're like no but he's saying it's okay he's saying it's all right like there's like are you are you seriously going by like they say it's good to do that so i did it I just imagine like those political cartoons, you know what I'm talking about?

43:53And it's just two guys in suits that have every orifice stuffed with cash. And they're like, I didn't know it was bad for people. What? No one told me that. No one told me I couldn't do that. Like, it's like, you run a mega corporation. You're telling me you're that dumb? I feel like then I should run your mega corporation. I'm smarter than you then. It doesn't make sense. So Yugong is arguing that it's Oxy's responsibility to run new tests if you're going to use it in something that's not an industrial rug cleaner. And Oxy is saying, you didn't tell us that it could be dangerous upon inhalation.

44:30Otherwise, we wouldn't have created this product. So they're just throwing the blame on each other. Which, side note, a lot of people, myself included, think that these big, big companies like this would never put people at risk, right? Because they're putting themselves at risk for a massive class action lawsuit, right? Right. Yeah. Sometimes the sales of a certain product before the lawsuit outweigh any legal fees that they would have to pay later. And I'm not saying that Oxy did that, but a lot of companies are under scrutiny for doing this with the opioid crisis, which is saying that, hey, we're going to just do this crazy things that we might get in trouble for, but we're about to make billions upon billions of dollars.

45:08So whatever, like one or two billion we got to pay in fines later, that's part of the bottom line. We're going to factor that into our costs. It's just part of government operating costs, they say, or people do that with the climate laws. These big, big companies, they have to do a certain thing to like be within their climate laws. Otherwise they get fined by the government. That government fine is just part of their operating costs now. It does not prevent them from doing the crazy shit that they're doing. So Oxy and Yugong, they were too busy watching the stock market and their bottom line to watch what was going on in the hospitals.

45:45They did not know people were getting sick and dying from a new mysterious lung disease. By the time that this hit the news, it was too late. Oxy and Yugong start scrambling to shuffle their cards and hide their dirty laundry. Allegedly, according to both company's lawyers, both Oxy and Yugong had no idea that their product was causing this mysterious lung disease in South Korea. But they do some very interesting things for companies who have no idea that they're about to get hit with a boatload of lawsuits. So December of 2011, Oxy hires two professors to run tests on their humidifier sterilizer.

46:20Wait, wait, wait. December 2011? Yes. This is before people found out or this is after people found out it was from the humidifier? Oh, so before they already caught the wind. Okay. People are like, hey, people are dying from something mysterious going on. And they're like, let's just run some tests out of nowhere on this product. So they hire two professors and they're doing some tests. These professors write that there was no connection between the Oxy product and the symptoms and deaths of the victims. Good stuff, right? Yeah. No, the professors will literally be jailed later for taking big bribes from Oxy.

47:00Big bribes. oxy also made a very generous donation to the university that the professors worked at wow cool okay not suspicious at all and then oxy goes to randomly and coincidentally change their company from a publicly traded company to a limited publicly traded company which is a legal change in classification the main difference that is pertinent to this case is when you're a limited company, the owners and stockholders are individually legally responsible and liable for the company only up to the amount that they invested into the company. It basically limits the extent in which a person or a singular person can be found legally responsible for anything inside the company.

47:45So this is all happening randomly and coincidentally. And then eventually the CDC went after Oxy. They made the connection by talking to all the victims who said that they bought Oxy Suck Suck humidifier sterilizer and used it before getting sick. There was a recall on all of Oxy Suck Suck sterilizers and a bunch of other small brands who saw Oxy was killing it in this market. They read the ingredients and they just thought, okay, Oxy is a megacorp. They probably did all of the investigations and studyings into this chemicals and made sure that it was safe and they have a non-toxic seal. So we're going to recreate the same exact product, maybe sell it for cheaper because we don't have a brand name attached to us.

48:25If Oxy's doing it, it must be safe. Basically, all the humidifier sterilizers are being recalled and customers were recommended to throw away any products they had immediately. All of it. Throw it away. For the public and really the victims and the family members. I mean, when this connection was made, it was like a gut punch. A lot of parents, they blame themselves. they thought that they were doing their best for their families they used a humidifier they went the extra mile not even to use a humidifier but to make sure that there was no bacteria being formed inside of that humidifier and in the end because they were the ones that bought and used the humidifier disinfectant a lot of them blamed themselves and I'm sure we don't need a disclaimer but this is crazy I mean none of this is their fault the parents they couldn't see that some of them said that I even put the humidifier closer to my child's crib because I thought it would help with their cold symptoms, not knowing that their cold symptoms were literally them dying because of this humidifier disinfectant.

49:32They had no idea that they were bringing the killer closer and closer to their own children. Sungjin, the husband who lost his baby and then his wife, remember at the beginning of this story. He said, I bought that humidifier. I'm the one that put the disinfectant in the humidifier. This situation just feels so unfair. I feel so wronged. Another mom said, after I found out I wanted to die even more because I was the one that put the disinfectant in the humidifier. I was the one that put it closer to my child's face and I didn't even think to research what I was giving to him. There was a firefighter amongst the victim's family, He's a single dad who just wanted the best for his five-year-old son He bought a humidifier because he heard that winters get dry and all these kids had chapped lips And then he read about how mold is very easy to form in a humidifier So he bought a humidifier sterilizer and he said it was all his fault He said who was the one who bought the disinfectant?

50:32Me as a father and as a first responder who saves the lives of people in this country I sent my own son with my own hands to his grave. And he sobbed and said, how can a bastard like me that can't even protect his own son, how can he protect the people of this country? Over a thousand people died.

51:01There were others who were lucky enough to survive, but their lives had completely changed since this incident. A little boy named Sung Joon was just two years old when he started showing symptoms. Doctors said that there were literal chemical burns on his lung tissues. Since then, his lungs were just never the same again. He could only breathe through his nose. Air would come out of his throat, which meant that he could still talk, but he couldn't inhale from his mouth, only his nose. So now, if he gets a cold and mucus blocks his nasal passageways, his oxygen supply is depleted. he could literally die from getting a common cold.

51:37The doctors had to put a breathing tube at the base of his neck so that he could get more air into his lungs. That tube stayed there for 10 years. His voice changed. It became jagged and bumpy because of his damage. He can't whisper. He can't exercise or do anything that requires an elevated oxygen intake. This means that anytime friends go running or doing anything active, he just has to sit at home. He also has to use an electricity-powered oxygen machine 24-7. If that machine breaks down, he will be unable to breathe. One year, there was a blackout in the area where he lived. His oxygen machine turned off because of the blackout, and he literally had to be ambulanced to an emergency room because he was about to die.

52:22Since then, they had to install a massive generator in their home. The oxygen machine, it can be portable if they want, but they have to charge it, and the battery doesn't last long. So if he's out when the oxygen machine dies, he has minutes, minutes to get somewhere before his brain shuts down from the lack of oxygen. So he has minutes to find electricity, but he can't run. He can't panic because he has to stay calm because he needs he can barely get oxygen. So he and his parents, they constantly live with that fear that a simple jog back home because his machine is running out of power or a simple cold could literally kill him.

53:04They said that it broke their heart to see their kids sitting at home bored when all the other kids were living their lives. And because he spent so much time as a kid just laying down instead of up and running around because of how weak he was, his bones are so brittle to the point where if he trips and falls a bit too hard, his bones break. It's like he has the bones of an elderly person. And the scariest part of all of this is that Sung Joon's lungs were only able to recover because he was away from the toxic fumes of the humidifier when he was hospitalized. He recovered. When he got back home, his mom went right back to using the humidifier because she was told it was good for her son.

53:44But in some sort of act of craziness from God or the universe or whoever you believe in, the humidifier broke down. And she read online that sometimes humidifiers break down if you use too much disinfectant. She never got around to purchasing another one And it didn't seem like he needed it She said I shudder at the thought of what would have happened If I continued to use the disinfectant In the past 10 years In the interview 13 year old Sung Joon said I guess my only wish is to be able to run around Or go to the gym Or go to the playground with my friends There was another victim Whose life was irreversibly damaged by the sterilizer So his mom bought this sterilizer after watching TV and all these commercials talking about how healthy this was and how good it was for family homes.

54:35And a few months later, her baby was hospitalized. His lungs had literally collapsed. Thankfully, the doctors stabilized him and they were able to get him to a point where he could leave the hospital and live life on his own. But since he was one when this happened, his body would never develop normally ever again. He also can't exercise. He can't do anything that's too strenuous on his lungs. and at 13 years old, he only weighs 62 pounds. For reference, the CDC says the average healthy 13-year-old boy weighs anywhere between 75 to 145 pounds. Chun-suk, his name, Chun, he cannot exercise and he was so bored at home, he said that due to his inability to be active, he read 10 ,000 books.

55:20He also volunteers as a tour guide at a museum at 13 years old. and he lost it. You said this happened in 2011? Yes. 2008. Yeah. So these, they're all like 20 year old right now. Yeah. Oh my God. He said he tries to stay positive, but no matter how many books he reads or how positively he thinks, his body is in pain all the time and he just gets sad because he's in pain. He wants to voice it. He wants to talk about it, but then his parents get emotional and they start blaming themselves. they feel like they're the reason that this happened and he just wants to tell them that none of this is their fault none of it side note in the midst of all of this you go the chemical company the one that supplied it to oxy they go and undergo like a branding change right they rebrand they change their name to sk chemical to show their direct ties to the south korean mega conglomerate SK Group.

56:21They're owned by SK Group. What? Yeah. This is the second largest company in the country right behind Samsung. So when all of this hit in the news, South Korean netizens were enraged. Parents of victims, they took time off work and they used their own money to hold rallies in front of Oxy's South Korean headquarters. But because this is a UK brand, a lot of these parents flew to the United Kingdom. They protested at the headquarters there. Most people blamed Oxy because it was their product. Some people blamed Yugong or SK Chemical for not letting Oxy know not to do that. And a lot of Koreans were also upset with the government.

56:59They felt like it was the government's responsibility to make sure that these corporations were following the laws. The consumers, they don't have the power or the funds to do these types of inspections, even if they wanted to. But the government does have the power and they have the money via taxes, might they add. It is their literal job to do this. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Korea said, well, we check disinfectants and other household cleaners, but this is new and it's supposed to be for the Ministry of Environment. They were the ones that gave the non-toxic seal in the first place, so it's on them.

57:32The government also argued that it was Yugong's fault for giving them the wrong information about how this product was going to be used. And then Yugong said, no, it's Oxy's fault because they were the one that changed the purpose of the product and didn't tell anyone. So everyone is just blaming everyone Literally Personally, I think it's everyone's fault A top chemistry professor in South Korea said There is no such thing as a consumable disinfectant And when you are putting it into a humidifier You are making it consumable Because it is being inhaled into the body Yeah Yeah, that's what's happening That's how a humidifier works You're getting moisture into the body And onto the skin So what are you talking about?

58:14We all know logically that we can't eat sanitizers or sterilizers even though they aren't toxic or acidic enough to harm our skin. So why didn't they recognize at the time that constantly breathing it in would be the same thing? How could the distributors of PHMG not have thought about this? This is literally their company. This is what they do for a living. How do they not think about that? another one of his colleagues said why do you think people do drugs through their nose the drugs get absorbed the fastest and easiest through the lungs and through the nose into the system i mean why couldn't we think that inhaling chemicals in vapor wasn't going to have some sort of health repercussions it sounds like he's blaming the consumers but he's not the whole sentiment people had was if we all saw humidifier sterilizers on grocery shelves we would not think twice about it.

59:07We would assume that by being on the shelves, it had gone through all the necessary tests to make sure that it was safe. It even had a sticker that advertised how family friendly it was and that it was non-toxic guaranteed by the South Korean government. I would think, oh my god, a bunch of smart chemists found a way to kill bacteria through the humidifiers and me having major dust mite allergies. I would have a thousand percent bought it. I would have a million percent bought it if I was a parent with a newborn child because I'd be thinking I'm doing what's best for my kid. So these victims, they held protests and rallies, but they also sued.

59:40Two lawsuits were waged against Oxy and Yugong, well now SK Chemical, and the first lawsuit was suspended due to lack of evidence. The court devastatingly stated that they could not prove PHMG was the specific reason for the hardened lungs and collapsed lungs. A lot of netizens felt like because SK Chemical was directly involved in the lawsuit, the courts dismissed it. SK Group is the second biggest conglomerate in South Korea. And honestly, I really shouldn't be even talking about them. Okay. But, um, they bring in$139 billion in revenue every single year. To give you a comparison, Target brings in about a hundred billion in revenue.

1:00:18So SK Group is, is a big corporation. They're huge. They hold a lot of influence and in the political sphere of South Korea, every country has their problems with bribery and corruption. In the US, we just call it lobbying. Okay. In South Korea, it's just straight bribery. Same thing. Netizens speculated, well, not the same thing, but very similar. Okay. You guys get it. Netizens speculated that SK group had a lot of influence over the first court decision. The victims understandably did not react well to that decision. They stood up in court and shouted, not enough evidence. My dying body is evidence.

1:00:55Many netizens and victims' families held protests outside of SK Group now. They were putting their lives on hold, just wanting an apology. Many of the victims' families, they didn't even want money. They wanted acknowledgement. And they would never get it. SK Chemical kept saying, well, it's Oxy that did it. And Oxy kept mentioning, well, we did do it, but these professors said that it was fine. And for a while, Oxy did nothing. For five years since their product was recalled, They just kept hoping the situation would resolve itself or quietly die down, but it wouldn't. Finally, in 2016, the CEO of Oxy gave a press conference and did a complete 90 degree bow on stage in front of cameras in South Korea in hopes that it would show that he was, I don't know, one with the people, respectful of Korean culture.

1:01:49Nobody cared. Literally, a father of one of the victims walked on stage and slapped him across the face. like pulled his arm back and gave him a proper slap across the face. The CEO said, this is the first time we are accepting the fullest responsibility and we are offering a complete and full apology. We are late. Five years have passed. He also stated that the company would be setting up a multi-million dollar humanitarian fund for the victims and their children. Their compensation plan was as follows. The victims would be split into four main categories and they start getting really vague about the categories.

1:02:25Category one are like people who died. Category two are people who like didn't die, but their lives are affected. Category three are like, are you even sure that you're sick because of us? Like that's basically what they're saying. Category one is like, you bought it, but I don't think nothing happened to you. They were just so vague about everything. So vague about how someone would be able to, like they were saying, if you could prove that you're a category one victim, then you would get a certain amount of compensation but people are like, how would I prove that I died because of you? Technically, I died because my lungs hardened.

1:03:01Like, you're being so vague about it. Like, it's weird. It made it seem like there were so many guardrails put in place and nobody would get compensated. Now, side note, the numbers on how many people directly or indirectly lost their lives from the product differs wildly. Some state it's around 1 ,500 people that died. some stayed indirectly it's closer to 16 000 indirectly meaning these people later went on to develop some sort of cancers or autoimmune diseases so it's not direct death but it's like you're gonna die from this cancer or this disease so it's an indirect death yeah i mean i mean it's almost direct yeah so netizens did not really trust oxy even after this press conference and it doesn't really matter if we believe them or not because they said the fund ran out and they're not paying any more victims.

1:03:49We don't even know how many victims were compensated. There were no figures on what I could find about how many of them were registered victims, how many of them were compensated, how much they were compensated. And just to show you how bad it was, one of the victims, Min Suyeon, she said that her first child was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease because of Oxy's chemical. On top of that, she and her youngest child have lifelong asthma because of this chemical. She said she never got anything from Oxy or SK chemical for compensation. The government set up a fund and gave her a little bit of money.

1:04:22They gave her and her youngest child medical bills, some medical bills. They compensated for some medical bills because they were like, oh, asthma is probably a direct compensation. But they were like, you can't prove that the autoimmune disease came from the chemical. So they're literally drowning in medical bills. I I mean, probably not as much as it would have been in the US, but they have a lot of bills. They have a lot of work that they'd been skipping to go to and from all these hospital visits. Like the financial impact was large for these people. And these are just like regular everyday people.

1:04:53They're not the CEOs of Oxy. They're not loaded. She said that the bills have made it really tough for the family. And because it had been 10 years since this happened. So she was talking about it in 2021. When everything started coming to light, you know, there were rumors that these victims were going to be filthy rich because Oxy was a megacorp. Because, you know, I guess in America, even we have the sentiment of like, oh my God, this huge corporation did this. You're going to sue them and make millions and billions of dollars. Everyone assumes that the victims of this humidifier sterilizer are filthy rich.

1:05:25And she says, I want to tell people that is not true. False information is being spread and many people are forgetting about the victims and they think that we're making money off of this. It is so painful. I want this case to gain attention and to tell people the reality of the situation about all the victims situations. I would appreciate it if the government didn't act so mildly towards the victims anymore. Either way, Oxy still wasn't off the hook. An ex-Oxy employee came out and said during a trial in South Korea that Oxy totally knew how profitable the sterilizer were going to be for them.

1:05:58They had much incentive to put this on the shelves. So the UK headquarters allegedly were having trouble bridging the sales gap in the winter time. So I guess everyone does like spring cleaning, summertime cleaning, like you got people over, you're partying, you're going on vacations and having house parties and you're buying all these cleaning products. And then in the winter, everyone kind of stays home. You don't open your windows as much. I feel like maybe there is a trend of cleaning less during the winter. Okay. And I don't, I don't know. Right. But they were saying, you know, they needed some sales in the winter time.

1:06:29And now that their South Korean branch had this new liquid sanitizer for humidifiers, it was flying off the shelves and bridging that monetary gap during the seasons. Just about every South Korean uses a humidifier during the winter. And with a bit of advertising about the dangers of mold in humidifiers, boom, he said. That's what the ex-Oxy employees said. Also, PHMG came in liquid form, which meant that it was much cheaper to transport across different countries. And it was cheaper to process compared to other chemicals that they handle. So some chemicals, I guess, come in like vapor forms or gas forms, and those are hard.

1:07:07Vapor, gas forms, and those are hard, right? It would take a lot less money to make, and it would be a bestseller. Oxy did not like that, this ex-employee statement. Oxy did not want the blame so bad. So when they went to court, they literally blamed South Korea, the whole government. So the government already accepted their responsibility. They were the only ones that did. They drafted, passed, and enacted laws to make sure that this would never happen again. They tried to set up their own compensation fund for the victims, albeit it was horrible. It was not enough money. But the CEO of Oxy still tried to shift the blame.

1:07:41So I'm just going to read you a court transcript back in 2020, and I'm going to paraphrase it to make the message clear. But it's very much giving. I know I broke the law, but why did it take you so long to catch me? Technically, it's your fault. If you caught me sooner, less people would have died. like that's the energy to the judge the ceo said if in 1994 when sk chemical first created and sold this humidifier disinfectant and also in 1996 when oxy first released it if the government took more accurate measures to watch the process and develop would we have seen such a tragedy unfold today the judge literally says so this is the government's fault the ceo ignores the judge and the judge goes on to talk about how when the product was recalled oxy should have made a compensation plan for the victims instead of trying to cover it up, such as hiring these random professors to say that there was no link.

1:08:31And that now in 2020, after all of this has happened, you know, now you want to be like, oh my God, I'm sorry, but now your compensation fund has also run out of money. Like what? And then without a single hesitation, the CEO of Oxy goes on to say, in 2016, when our company acknowledged responsibility and provided compensation, if the government institutions and SK Chemical, who has the responsibility, had worked together to take that responsibility and create compensation for the victims, then the victims would not have to endure such painful suffering to this extent. They're basically saying, we just did compensation out of the goodness of our hearts.

1:09:08And honestly, it was you guys who should have done it. If you guys had done it, the victims would not have suffered as much. On SK Chemical's part, they gave the courts four of their employees on a silver platter and they said, these are the ones that did it. So take them. The employee said, we did not know that this chemical would be used in this way. We created this chemical because we were asked to. We thought it would be used as a rug cleaner or some sort of industrial strength cleaner. How is this our problem? But SK Chemicals lawyers were a lot better than these employees lawyers. And they technically were the ones who created the chemical.

1:09:45So they got seven years in jail each. they just threw some low ladder employees under the bus and thought they could move on now and it worked I mean that's crazy like I don't even understand how that worked imagine your employer tells you to make something and they're like it's going to be for rug cleaner they don't use it as a rug cleaner it ends up being used for something else and people are like drinking this and they die and they're like okay you're going to jail now you're like this isn't even my IP this is I'm not even making royalties off the sales of this like what are you talking about?

1:10:15Why is this my problem? I'm literally a nine to five employee right now. Oxy's South Korean representative was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison as well. So basically what Oxy was doing is saying, hey, the UK headquarters, our mega corporation has nothing to do with this. This is the South Korean branch. We have no control over them. They're crazy. They're doing some crazy stuff over there. And that is it. None of the big rich guys who controlled these companies were really touched in any of this oxy did take a huge financial hit the news got so big that there was a worldwide boycott very brief but um a global boycott of oxy products like the scale of this yeah thousands of people died and probably tens of thousands of people their whole life is ruined and changed forever yeah and only like you're saying like five employees got a couple of years.

1:11:10Yeah. How is that fair? It's not. I think what's scary is the thing is it keeps happening. Like when cigarettes came out, it was never said to be a killer. It was like said to be this thing that's good for people or like a good stress reliever. So imagine how many things today we're going to be in 20 years. Like, oh my God, that was killing all of us and we just found out now like i'm so scared to even think about it because i would start to get so paranoid about every tiny little thing that we do but it's just scary and i think this puts into perspective at least for me like i really cannot trust this idea of oh a big company wouldn't do that because they're gonna get like a class action lawsuit that's crazy yeah i mean i would like to believe i mean oxy's still going strong they're now known as the rb group.

1:12:01They're killing it. They're going strong. And so is the SK group. They're like untouchable in South Korea and in the US now, right? So I would like to believe that both companies made improvements in their safety teams, but who really knows? This singular product is known to have killed over a thousand people in South Korea. And it seems like everyone kind of knew that it wasn't good for people. It's not being sold anymore, thankfully, but there were tens of millions of bottles sold the likelihood that there's still some bottle out there unused underneath someone's kitchen sink is terrifying i will say south korea has seen a wave of chemophobia chemophobia i guess it'd be chemophobia but um yeah ever since and since then south korean families are really crazy about using chemicals in any sort of cleaning products like i think i would say my mom is not that bad, but I know a lot of Koreans that don't even like Clorox wipes.

1:13:02Really? Yeah. Like any sort of chemical, they're so opposed to it, especially in Korea. So that's why you see a lot of Koreans cleaning with like vinegar mixtures. We love a good vinegar mixture clean. It's a little stinky, but it works. Yeah. Which honestly, I can see how that happened. In 2019, Joon-seok gave a speech. So June is the 13 year old boy who read 10 ,000 books and he gave a speech in front of the Korean Congress in 2019 and he titled it eight things I cannot do. He says, hello, I am a victim of the humidifier disinfectant. My lung blew up and collapsed when I was one years old. First, I cannot exercise because I run out of breath.

1:13:44Second, I cannot join my friends when they're playing. Third, I cannot blow up a balloon, even if I wanted to. Fourth, I cannot play any wind instruments, like the flute. Fifth, I cannot go to school every day because of all of my hospital appointments. Sixth, I always have to bring tissues around because I always have a runny nose or I sneeze uncontrollably. Seventh, I am underweight and every time I need an injection, which is frequently, they have to poke me a lot. Eight, it is easy for me to fall over even if my friends push me softly. The toxic humidifier disinfectant was sold by greedy companies and the government allowed it.

1:14:34Nobody is taking responsibility and I want them to all take responsibility for their actions and decisions. But it seems like they still haven't and I don't think that they have plans to. So that is the story of the silent killer who killed over a thousand people in South Korea. What are your thoughts? I mean, does this like, does it feel like a wake-up call in some way to you? What else do you think is happening today that in 20 years from now, we're going to be like, oh my God, how did we not see that? What are your thoughts? And please stay safe and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode.

1:15:12Bye.

From the publisher

In a South Korean emergency room a young family anxiously waited for help.

Their 3 month old baby had been perfectly healthy but now his X-rays showed evidence that his lungs were literally solidifying and turning into rock. He was dying and there was nothing they could do to save him.

They walked in a family of 3 - walked out a family of 2.

Just a few days later the same family of 2 walked back in - and only 1 walked out alive.

In the matter of a week 2 family members had died. But that’s not all - doctors around the nation noticed an alarming new killer on the streets. A new poison targeting children and pregnant women. Could they find the culprit before it was too late?

Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com

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