Seventy Years of Minamata Disease

Seventy years have passed since the first patient of Minamata Disease, one of the most serious social nuisances in post-war Japan, was discovered in Minamata city, Kumamoto. Not only the company that caused the disease but the government of Japan has been accused of failing in salvaging the sufferers. The patients still demand support from the government. 

A health care center in Minamata received a report that a patient with unknown brain symptom was hospitalized on May 1st, 1956. The disease was later identified as neurological paralysis caused by methylmercury. This chemical material was supposed to be brought by fish in the sea, which was polluted by waste water emitted from a company that produced fertilizer, Chisso. The patients ate those fish.

 

In 1968, Minamata Disease was designated as a public pollution disease which was caused by pollutive material produced by industrial activities. The government had to support the sufferers as a legal obligation. After Japan’s defeat in the World War II, Japan achieved a fast economic growth with industrial development, which caused those kinds of pollution. Japan Environment Agency, currently Ministry of Environment was established in 1971 to deal with those negative aspects of rapid industrial growth.

 

The government was supposed to extend its helping hands to the sufferers. However, the hands have not reach them completely. The government added some conditions on identifying the patients of Minamata Disease. They included paralysis in limbs or tunnel vision. Sufferers filed several lawsuits against the government and won temporary compensation in 1995 and 2009. Nevertheless, the registered patients are limited to two thousand out of 33 thousand who submitted their applications. It is still unclear how many Minamata Disease patients are in Japan.

 

Minister of environment, Hirotaka Ishihara, had a meeting with the members of organization for supporting Minamata victims. Although sufferers demanded revision of the system for identification of patients of Minamata Disease, Ishihara dismissed those requests. Ishihara insisted on examination of MEG (magnetoencephalography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to identify patients of Minamata Disease. But the method is criticized as alienating the sufferers from governmental support.

 

The government’s reluctance in identifying the patients can be resembled slow progress in identification of sufferers of atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. There are a lot of people who suffer from aftereffects of the bombing. However, the government of Japan has been taking negative attitude to support the people who were not in the epicenter when the bombs were dropped.

 

It is broadly recognized in the government of Japan that hardship of defeat in the war should be shared by all the people in Japan. They recognize that supporting patients of specific disease may be doing a favor for specific people. That is nothing but defying their responsibility to work for the people suffering from decision making or no decision of the government.

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