[Korea Encounters] 'Bottomless corruption' of Korea's 1965 methadone scandal

Korea Times archive July 14, 1965

By Matt VanVolkenburg

The discovery of "spurious" elements in a widely sold vitamin injection in the spring of 1965 prompted an investigation that set off a cascade of shocking discoveries that shook Korean society to its core. Not only had thousands of people been sold drugs adulterated with the synthetic narcotic methadone, bribery by drug companies responsible had corrupted the very institutions that were supposed to be protecting citizens.

It all began in late April 1965, when Yongnam Pharmaceutics Co. was investigated after it was discovered that its vials of B-1 vitamin injection contained no vitamins, but rather "morphine-like elements." Within days it became clear that "23 drugs widely used by the Korean public contained a synthetic narcotic known as methadone." The majority of those drugs had been sold outside of Seoul to farmers and miners, many of whom were reported to have become addicted.

In an editorial, The Korea Times criticized the government's "seriously defective" pharmaceutical administration which had allowed "wicked businessmen" to carry out "one of the most detestable and horrible crimes ever committed against Korean society." It called for stringent punishment and strict policing of the pharmaceutical industry.

Initial investigations discovered that the problem went beyond the 16 drug companies, some of which had been making methadone-containing pharmaceuticals since 1962. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry had authorized the import of two chemicals needed to make methadone for use as dyestuffs but it had never detected their diversion into methadone production.

As well, the fact that the Institute of National Scientific Investigation (INSI), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, had discovered the methadone brought criticism upon the National Health Institute (NHI), the watchdog of the drug industry formed in 1963, for not having detected the problem first. This came as no surprise to those who understood that the woefully underfunded NHI was tasked with analyzing 400 drugs per month with a staff of only 13 technicians.

The NHI's problems went beyond this, however. After it was decided in early June to centralize the expanding investigation under the Seoul Prosecutors' Office, investigators discovered that NHI head Chon Pyong-su had accepted 2 million won in bribes from nine drug makers to expedite the allocation of AID funds for importation of pharmaceuticals. Chon said he turned over the amount to Rep. Sin Kwan-u of the ruling Democratic Republican Party.

Korea Times archive June 30, 1965

In late June, it was reported that Soh In-chang, chief of the NHI's standards section, had been saying since 1962 that he could not identify methadone because he had no methadone samples for comparison. As this was discovered not to be true, investigators suspected he was colluding with drug companies and arrested him. In mid-July, Kim Ju-taek, a lab technician in Busan, testified and proved he had extracted methadone from 13 drugs in November 1963 and sent reports of this to Soh, but Soh had submitted a vague report saying the pharmaceuticals merely contained "irregular" elements.

In late July it was discovered that three laboratory reports stating the presence of methadone in medicines, submitted by INSI to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in November 1964, had been destroyed by a narcotics official at the ministry, who also tipped off the companies.

Such insider knowledge allowed some company presidents to go into hiding before the investigation began, but by the fall most had been arrested. By the end of the year a number of company heads and corrupt officials had been sentenced to jail terms ranging from six to 15 years.

The human toll of this scandal is unclear. Some newspapers surmised that "millions of Koreans must be addicted to methadone," and prosecutor Kim Chang-uk estimated that 230,000 people had become addicted to the narcotic substance. While the health minister gave a figure of 50,000 methadone addicts, by mid-October only 898 addicts had turned themselves in for free treatment, despite assurances they would not be prosecuted.

Ultimately, a positive result of this tale of "bottomless corruption" was strict new laws to regulate and monitor drug companies. But considering that a month ago the Korean government canceled the license for the gene therapy drug Invossa after discovering a mislabelled ingredient, it is clear the need for these laws has not disappeared.

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr.

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