감기약 콘택600 제조물책임사건에 관한 민사법적 고찰 - 대법원 2008.2.28. 선고 2007다52287 판결 -

A Study on the Product Liability Case of a Cold Medicine CONTAC 600 in Terms of Civil Law

While the medical supplies have positive functions such as extending lifespan, recovering health, and preventing diseases, they also cause unexpected tragic consequences due to their side effects, and the magnitude of such damage inevitably increases due to the mechanism of mass production, mass distribution, and mass consumption of those medical supplies. Therefore, needless to say, the optimal way to prevent or reduce such damage is rather through medical supply manufacturers' producing non-defective products, or through the government's controlling production and sales of medical supplies with more aggressive exercise of regulatory authority on medical supply manufacturers, than through a remedy by a legal relief after using medical supplies. In this case, although the victim died due to the defect of the cold medicine, 'CONTAC 600', the drug company's responsibility to cover damages was not recognized because a defect could not be found in the then-manufacturing process. Thus, while pharmaceutical companies are gaining economic profits by producing and selling a medical supplies, if they do not take any remedy measures for the victims of their products' side effects, the victims have to use medical supplies under their own responsibility of taking a risk, and they have to accept the full damage of the potential consequence. Therefore, to remove such absurdity and contradiction, and to practically remedy the victim of medical supplies' side effects, the pharmaceutical side effects remedy project pending in the the Drugs, Cosmetics and Medical Instruments Lawneeds to be actively implemented.