환경독성학적 관점에서 본 가습기살균제 사건과 국가의 책임- 고분자물질 등록 시험 자료 제출 면제 조항을 중심으로 -

It is generally speculated that one of the causes of the humidifier disinfectant incidence of Korea in 2011 which sacrificed more than 100 pregnant women and babies was originated from the incompleteness of legal provisions of the government, especially from the preventive effort at national level. The author pointed out in 2014 in a conference that 4 items were not complete enough to prevent the incidence in the domestic legal system. In this article, focusing on one of the items, a comparison of domestic and foreign laws was taken to elucidate the drawbacks of domestic legal provision on the causative chemicals of concern, especially on the exemption of data requirement for the registration of polymeric chemicals. As a result, it was found that the domestic law on Hazardous/Toxic Chemical Control Law of 1991 was lacking the provision on ineligible chemical categories, in this case the cationic polymers, of polymer exemption for the registration of new chemicals. However, the U.S.A. and Australia had provided this ineligibility section in the early stage of the implementation of the law and regulations. Therefore, if the Korean government had adopted the concerned technical part of the regulation through meticulous technical review of the laws and regulations of foreign countries, the fatal incidence of 2011 could have been partially prevented. Through the literature search on the issue, the unpreparedness of the government on this aspect is partially liable for the cost of the victims of the incidence based on the reasoning that the authority was negligent of the effort of preventing the health risk of the citizen, regardless of the responsibility and compensation effort of the concerned industry for the damage. One peculiar finding through this study was the fact that the ineligibility practice of the Toxic Substances Control Act of the U.S.A. dealing with cationic polymers had originated from the recognition of the specific property of the chemical category being seriously harmful to aquatic organisms through past review processes in the government. It could plainly iterated that the U.S. government's legal provision could have saved numerous citizen's life by enactment of laws preserving the ecosystem. Even if it is late, but we are happy to see that the new Korean Chemical law enacted in 2015 adopted the ineligibility of cationic polymers in the exemption practice for polymeric chemicals. However, the details of the Korean law on this issue still need further to be compared with the ones of foreign countries for technical completeness and be amended.