SEOUL, Oct. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s youth are facing mounting mental health challenges, with child and adolescent suicide rates climbing to their highest level in more than two decades, according to a government report released Wednesday. The “Child and Youth Quality of Life 2025” survey, published by the National Data Office, found that [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Suicide has overtaken cancer as the leading cause of death for South Koreans in their 40s, underscoring the intensifying pressures on the country’s core working-age population, according to new government data. Figures released by Statistics Korea show that South Korea’s overall suicide rate rose to 29.1 deaths per 100,000 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s pharmaceutical industry is bracing for fallout after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that the widely used painkiller Tylenol could raise the risk of autism when taken during pregnancy, a claim experts say lacks scientific basis. At a White House press conference on September 22, Trump said studies [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — As medical reshuffling debates intensify in South Korea, critics warn that the absence of any legal or institutional mechanism for patients to verify doctors’ qualifications or disciplinary history is leaving the public vulnerable. Unlike lawyers and accountants at home, or doctors in the United States and Britain, physicians in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is grappling with the surge in e-cigarette use, as health experts warn of toxic risks and public frustration grows over indoor vaping by celebrities and ordinary users alike. The government has launched a new campaign emphasizing the dangers of vaping, even as other countries tighten outright bans. [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean court has ruled that the government must compensate the family of a man who died of a brain hemorrhage a week after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, marking a rare legal victory for claimants seeking recognition of vaccine-related injuries. The Seoul Administrative Court said in a ruling [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is preparing to abolish a decades-old system that requires family members to act as legal guardians for psychiatric patients, a move hailed by advocates as a long-awaited step toward strengthening state responsibility for mental health care. According to officials and welfare experts on Sunday, the draft of the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is witnessing the rapid spread of so-called “warehouse-style pharmacies,” large outlets that display and sell medicines and health supplements in bulk, fueling a heated debate over public health and market fairness. The trend began earlier this year in Seongnam, south of Seoul, and has since spread to [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s reliance on U.S. pharmaceuticals deepened in 2024, with imports topping $1 billion for the first time, government data showed Tuesday. The trend, fueled by surging demand for cancer treatments and rare disease drugs, has stirred warnings about supply vulnerabilities at a time of heightened trade and tariff tensions [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans are experiencing relatively high levels of anxiety about aging, particularly over declining health and financial insecurity, with younger adults reporting greater unease than their elders, according to new research released Tuesday. The Hanyang University Institute on Aging surveyed 4,254 adults nationwide last year and developed what it [...]