[2020 National Audit] "YouTube Illegal Medical Advertisements, 'Backdoor Advertising' Blind Spot"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyun-ui Cho] Amid recent controversies over influencers' 'undisclosed advertisements,' concerns have been raised that illegal medical advertisements using social network services (SNS) remain in a blind spot outside the scope of prior review.

It is a violation of the Medical Service Act for anyone other than medical institution founders or medical professionals to engage in medical advertising. Advertising disguised as 'personal experiences,' such as visiting a hospital in person to receive surgery or treatment and providing detailed information about the hospital's location, phone number, consultation, and pre-surgery process, is also illegal under Article 56, Paragraph 2, Subparagraph 2 of the Medical Service Act.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Nam In-soon, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee (Democratic Party), the total number of medical advertisement prior review cases in the second year since the introduction of the new voluntary prior review system for medical advertisements was 22,990 in the past year, a 14.78% decrease compared to 26,978 cases last year.

This has been pointed out as a blind spot because, despite most medical advertisements being online-based, only internet media and SNS platforms with an average daily user count of over 100,000 in the previous three months are subject to prior review.

By media type, internet media such as applications accounted for 72.7% (16,710 cases) of the total, while SNS accounted for 11.2% (2,566 cases).

Regarding the prior review status of plastic surgery advertisements by the Medical Advertisement Review Committee, the proportion of plastic surgery advertisements among all advertisements is about one in four (25.8%), excluding 2016-2017 when prior review was suspended due to a constitutional court ruling.

In the past year, the three Medical Advertisement Review Committees detected 2,206 cases of illegal medical advertisements. According to Nam's office, a famous plastic surgery app that was investigated by the police last year on charges of patient inducement under the Medical Service Act is currently under prosecution and investigation by the prosecution.

Nam emphasized, "It is difficult to verify the actual daily user count of internet media and SNS, and users frequently enter and exit these platforms. Taking advantage of this gap, illegal medical advertisements are rampant on YouTube, applications, SNS, etc., so legal amendments are necessary."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.