Reasons for Proposal and Major Provisions

Recently, the Fair Trade Commission imposed penalty surcharges and ordered corrective action on health-functional food manufacturers/distributors that had requested medical personnel to write so-called “note prescriptions” that recommend patients or their families to purchase specific health-functional foods and provided 50% of sales revenue to the medical personnel in return.

Health-functional food is not a drug, but if a medical professional with expertise writes a “note prescription” for a specific health-functional food, patients and their families commonly purchase the product, and this not only limits the options of consumers, patients or their families, but also causes problems that lead to economic damage.

Therefore, this amendment aims to prohibit the provision of rebates by manufacturers/sellers of health-functional foods (Article 10 (1) 5 newly inserted).