Minister of Food and Drug Safety, “AI monitoring for food unfair advertising… Strengthening regulation of human tissue”

Concerns about misidentification of medicines limit food production and expand online crackdowns

Restrict advertising for the purpose of human tissue beauty and shorten the reporting cycle of side effects

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Shin Seon-mi = Minister of Food and Drug Safety Oh Yoo-kyung said on the 13th, "Based on voices from the field, we will reduce safety gaps and increase the effectiveness of policies."

Director Oh said this through a personnel and work report at the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee audit held on this day.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is improving the system and strengthening crackdowns to prevent consumer damage caused by unfair advertising in the food sector.

In relation to this, Director Oh said, “We will prohibit the use of prescription drug names or similar names as product names for general foods, and we will improve to clearly indicate on the main display panel of general foods in the form of tablets or capsules that they are not pharmaceutical health functional foods.”

He went on to say, “We will restrict the production of general foods in the form of tablets and capsules that are likely to be mistaken for medicines or health functional foods.”

In addition, he said, "We will increase the effectiveness of crackdowns through an organization dedicated to field response to food unfair advertising, and we will upgrade AI Cops, which monitors the illegal distribution of medicines and drugs, and use it to monitor online food fraud."

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety emphasized that it will also strengthen regulations on the use of human tissue.

Director Oh said, “As the use of human tissue for cosmetic purposes increases, we will limit advertising for cosmetic improvement purposes and strengthen training for workers.”

He added, "We will establish an early response system by shortening the side effect reporting cycle at tissue banks and transplant medical institutions, and increase transparency by informing patients in advance that human tissue has been used."

Director Oh emphasized, “The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will investigate the management systems of major countries and establish safety management standards for products utilizing human tissue.”

In addition, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that it will continue policies such as analyzing and disclosing harmful ingredients in cigarettes, expanding the scope of genetically modified food (GMO) labeling, eradicating illegal distribution of medical drugs, and expanding direct government supply of rare and incurable treatments.