Samsung Electronics Co. strongly refuted a news report made by a Korean broadcaster arguing that 54 workers at the company’s chip making facilities died from rare diseases since 1996, saying it is a misleading report based on unscientific and statistically wrong analysis.

Samsung Electronics said Sunday in its website that many studies at home and abroad have shown no statistical significance in the causal link between workers’ rare diseases and workplace hazards at its chip making lines.

Regarding the report’s claim that workers at its chip plants are more likely to die from rare diseases according to an analysis of a Seoul National University professor, it argued that the report was based on wrong and scientifically unproven calculation. It also pointed out that the chance of semiconductor workers in Korea dying of cancer is lower than that of others, citing a study done by the Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency.

The company said that it has compensated 127 employees as a gesture of condolence and anyone related to the matter can still apply for compensation.

Samsung Electronics also said that a committee comprising of a civic group and interested parties has been studying whether the workers’ deaths are related to occupational hazards and it would take necessary measures if anything comes up in the study.

The Korean chip giant’s latest move to strongly repudiate the media’s allegation of the causal link between workers’ rare diseases and workplace hazards at its chip making lines comes after the Korean Supreme Court earlier this month sent back a case seeking industrial claims for Samsung Electronics’ clean room casualty to a lower court, delivering a win for former employees of the country’s top chipmaker who have become ill or died from multiple sclerosis-kind diseases.

The latest ruling that seemingly recognized an employee’s disease as an industrial accident has raised the prospect that the scope of applying for industrial accidents at work places highly exposed to harmful chemical substances will broaden.

By Hwang Hyung-gyu and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]