Niigata Minamata disease

History

Discovery

The second outbreak of mercury poisoning in the Agano River basin to the prefectural government and made his findings public on 12 June.^[2]

Investigation

Throughout 1965 and 1966 researchers from the Kumamoto University Research Group (that had been set up to investigate the original outbreak) and Dr. Hajime Hosokawa (the former methyl mercury in moss at the outlet of the Showa Denko factory in Kanose village.^[2]

Response of Showa Denko

Showa Denko responded to the outbreak of Niigata Minamata Disease in a similar way that Chisso had responded in Minamata: by attempting to discredit the researchers while proposing their own theory. The company issued information leaflets that rejected their wastewater as the cause of the disease and suggested that the cause might have been an "agricultural chemical run-off" that entered the river after the 1964 Niigata earthquake.

Patients' lawsuit

Unlike their counterparts in Minamata, the victims of Showa Denko's pollution lived a considerable distance from the factory and had no particular link to the company. As a result the local community was much more supportive of patients' groups and a lawsuit was filed against the company in March 1968. The Niigata lawsuit was filed only three years after the outbreak had been made public in 1965. In contrast the first lawsuit filed in Minamata happened in 1969, thirteen years after the original outbreak was discovered.

On 26 September 1968, the government announced its official conclusion as to the cause of Niigata Minamata disease. The report said that although "the circumstances of the poisoning are extremely complex, and they are difficult to reproduce", the mercury had probably been discharged from the Kanose plant over a long period of time. However the report did not rule out other causes and Showa Denko's president Masao Yasunishi insisted that the company was not the cause of the outbreak.^[3]

The Niigata lawsuit was ultimately successful and on 29 September 1971 the court found Showa Denko guilty of negligence. Families of deceased and congenital patients received JPY10 million (USD28,600), surviving patients were awarded between JPY1 million and JPY10 million depending on symptoms, JPY400,000 (USD1,145) to those contaminated by mercury and JPY300,000 (USD858) was awarded to pregnant women who had been told to have abortions due to the danger posed to their unborn children.^[4]

A family-member of the deceased patient testified in court, "My father was crazed like a wild beast and then died—agonized, in pain... like a dog."

The events in Niigata catalysed a change in response to the original Minamata incident. The scientific research carried out in Niigata forced a re-examination of that done in Minamata and the decision of Niigata patients to sue the polluting company allowed the same response to be considered in Minamata. Masazumi Harada has said that "It may sound strange, but if this second Minamata disease had not broken out, the medical and social progress achieved by now in Kumamoto... would have been impossible."^[5]

See also

• Minamata disease
• Ontario Minamata disease
• Mercury poisoning
• Heavy metal poisoning

Notes

References

• "Minamata Disease: The History and Measures", The Ministry of the Environment, (2002), retrieved 17 January 2007
• Harada, Masazumi. (1972). Minamata Disease. Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbun Centre & Information Center/Iwanami Shoten Publishers. ISBN 978-4-87755-171-1 C3036
• George, Timothy S. (2001). Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-00785-7