[Anchor]

As cabbage soaked in formaldehyde, a Group 1 carcinogen, has been distributed in China, domestic consumer anxiety over Chinese kimchi is also growing.

Reporter Park Ha-jeong investigated how dangerous this is and what the situation is like in South Korea.

[Reporter]

At a supermarket in Seoul, kimchi is being sold at a special ultra-low price. It is manufactured in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.

It is difficult to know where the cabbage used as an ingredient in the kimchi was grown.

[Import Company Official: It is indeed Chinese kimchi, and it is manufactured in a HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) certified factory.]

Of the 194,400 tons of kimchi imported this year, 99.9% came from China.

Anxiety has spread to South Korea as it was belatedly revealed that cabbage was distributed after being soaked in a formaldehyde solution for the purpose of maintaining freshness in Hebei Province, China.

[Kim Tae-young: I am not going to eat kimchi at restaurants at all. You can pretty much assume that restaurants use Chinese kimchi.]

[Lee Eun-young: I think I won't purchase it, at least for a while, if the country of origin is marked as Chinese cabbage.]

Formaldehyde exists as a colorless, transparent gas at room temperature, and when dissolved in water, it becomes a formalin solution.

It is used in the manufacture of adhesives and preservatives, and was designated as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer under the World Health Organization in 2004.

The causal relationship between human exposure and cancer has been confirmed when formaldehyde is "inhaled" in a gaseous state.

[Kwon Soon-chan / Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Soonchunhyang University Cheonan Hospital: The evidence for carcinogenicity is established as being caused by occupational inhalation exposure. Nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia, particularly myeloid leukemia.]

While the carcinogenicity of ingesting formaldehyde has not yet been established, that does not mean it is safe.

Ingesting a high concentration of formalin all at once can cause burns to the mucous membranes of the mouth or esophagus, or lead to shock.

There are also reports that an adult can die when ingesting 30 ml of a 37% concentration formalin solution.

[Choi Yoon-ju / Senior Researcher at the Cancer Prevention Division of the National Cancer Center: (Adding it to food) itself is problematic, I can say that. However, as it goes through processes such as removing the roots of the cabbage, washing it in water, or boiling it, it can evaporate, and the health impacts may vary.]

Unless the amount of formaldehyde used in the problematic Chinese cabbage and whether it was exported to South Korea are ascertained, domestic consumer anxiety is unlikely to subside easily.

(Video Editing: Jeong Yong-hwa, Design: Kim Han-gil, VJ: Shin So-young)