« Toxic company: First cancer, now Samsung jobs linked to multiple sclerosis - Hazards magazine ». https://www.hazards.org/workingworld/toxiccompany.htm.
(extracts of the article)
It is not just cancer. In a ground-breaking 10 February 2017 judgment, a Seoul court ruled that the multiple sclerosis suffered by a former worker on the Samsung Electronics LCD production line is a work-related disease.
The Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favour of multiple sclerosis sufferer Kim Mi-seon. Supported by SHARPS, she had asked the court to force the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMEL) to reverse its decision not to approve her request for compensation for medical treatment.
The judge noted there had already been four confirmed cases of multiple sclerosis among workers at Samsung Electronics. “The number of patients at Samsung Electronics is much higher than the standard prevalence rate, and no other risk factors were confirmed for Kim aside from her work environment,” the judge said.
Lim Ja-woon, the attorney who represented Kim, said: “Samsung and its suppliers repeatedly defied court requests to provide chemical data used in LCD production.” SHARPS said that since May 2013, Samsung has complied with only one out of the 13 separate disclosure requests filed by Lim with the court.
Kim Mi-seon started her lawsuit in 2013, after the official compensation agency KCOMEL refused to recognise her multiple sclerosis as a work-related illness. In a 2017 judgment, judge Lee Gyu-hun overturned the KCOMEL decision, concluding: “The fact is that Kim was exposed to organic solvents such as acetone on the job; that she worked on shifts, including a night shift, before the age of 20; that she worked on a night shift in a sealed space; and that she did not have enough exposure to ultraviolet rays appear to have been factors that caused or exacerbated her multiple sclerosis.”
When she began working at a Samsung Electronics factory as a semiconductor assembly line worker at the age of 18, Kim Mi-seon says she was given a clean bill of health by company doctors. By the time Kim left three years later, she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which scientists believe is triggered by environmental factors. Now, the nervous system disease has left Kim nearly blind. Even over a decade after being diagnosed with MS, 35-year-old Kim can only shake her head and say, “I didn’t think I would one day be unable to recognize my own mother.”"
« Toxic company: First cancer, now Samsung jobs linked to multiple sclerosis - Hazards magazine ». https://www.hazards.org/workingworld/toxiccompany.htm.
(extracts of the article)
It is not just cancer. In a ground-breaking 10 February 2017 judgment, a Seoul court ruled that the multiple sclerosis suffered by a former worker on the Samsung Electronics LCD production line is a work-related disease.
The Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favour of multiple sclerosis sufferer Kim Mi-seon. Supported by SHARPS, she had asked the court to force the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMEL) to reverse its decision not to approve her request for compensation for medical treatment.
The judge noted there had already been four confirmed cases of multiple sclerosis among workers at Samsung Electronics. “The number of patients at Samsung Electronics is much higher than the standard prevalence rate, and no other risk factors were confirmed for Kim aside from her work environment,” the judge said.
Lim Ja-woon, the attorney who represented Kim, said: “Samsung and its suppliers repeatedly defied court requests to provide chemical data used in LCD production.” SHARPS said that since May 2013, Samsung has complied with only one out of the 13 separate disclosure requests filed by Lim with the court.
Kim Mi-seon started her lawsuit in 2013, after the official compensation agency KCOMEL refused to recognise her multiple sclerosis as a work-related illness. In a 2017 judgment, judge Lee Gyu-hun overturned the KCOMEL decision, concluding: “The fact is that Kim was exposed to organic solvents such as acetone on the job; that she worked on shifts, including a night shift, before the age of 20; that she worked on a night shift in a sealed space; and that she did not have enough exposure to ultraviolet rays appear to have been factors that caused or exacerbated her multiple sclerosis.”
When she began working at a Samsung Electronics factory as a semiconductor assembly line worker at the age of 18, Kim Mi-seon says she was given a clean bill of health by company doctors. By the time Kim left three years later, she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which scientists believe is triggered by environmental factors. Now, the nervous system disease has left Kim nearly blind. Even over a decade after being diagnosed with MS, 35-year-old Kim can only shake her head and say, “I didn’t think I would one day be unable to recognize my own mother.”"