Lamentable business ethics

How could large companies seek profits by ruining people's health?

It is deplorable indeed that some affiliates of the nation's leading conglomerates, including SK, LG and Hanwha groups, have shown miserable ethics in running businesses that directly affect people's health. That these companies have been making money at the expense of the public's health goes beyond the discussion of corporate ethics, deserving severe punishment.

Hong Jiho, former CEO of SK Discovery, was arrested Wednesday on the charge of professional negligence resulting in injuries and death due to the company's manufacturing and marketing of humidifier sterilizers containing harmful substances. He was the head of the erstwhile SK Chemicals when the company launched its Home Clinic Humidifier Mate along with Aekyung Industrial in 2002. Their humidifier brands affected the second largest number of victims following products from Oxy Reckitt Benckiser Korea.

SK Chemicals, which took over the humidifier division of Yukong in 2000, is suspected of continuing to sell the product while knowing its safety had not been confirmed. The company was accused by the environment ministry of falsely maintaining that it had no information related to experiments on the toxicity of humidifier sterilizers.

Meanwhile, LG Chem, Hanwha Chemical and 233 other companies in the Yeosu Industrial Complex, 455 km south of Seoul, are alleged to have colluded with air pollutant measuring firms to manipulate data on their emissions of fine dust. These companies seem to have deceived both the people and the government by falsifying figures while the public was suffering from the silent killer.

Their tricks were bold and various. The number of fabricated and falsified records since 2015 totals 13,096. LG Chem manipulated records on the emission of vinyl chloride to pretend there were no problems while discharging it at levels 73 times higher than was the standard. We are struck dumb how these companies could have committed these violations while knowing too well the pollutants erode people's health and lives.

As the environment ministry has revealed, however, these may be the proverbial tip of the iceberg. We hope the astonishing behavior of large companies will not turn out to be even more widespread. If this is in fact the case, the public will become truly apathetic at the state of our society. The violators should be made to pay dearly.