9/29/2007
Japan's Minamata Disease still lingers
By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer
SHIRANUI SEA, Japan - The dawn is still only a faint glow beyond distant mountains, but fisherman Akinori Mori and his wife, Itsuko, are already hard at work on their boat, reeling in nets of squid, fish and crabs. Nothing about this placid scene reveals that Japan's worst environmental disaster unfolded here. Starting 50 years ago, whole neighborhoods were poisoned by mercury-contaminated fish from these waters. Thousands of people were crippled, and hundreds died agonizing deaths. Babies were born with horrifying deformities. Today, the tragedy known as Minamata Disease is only a dim memory to the rest of the world, and few outside Japan would recognize Chisso Corp. as the company that polluted Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea with deadly methylmercury.
But for Akinori, 62, and Itsuko, 58, and many of the people living along these craggy coasts, the disaster never ended. The Moris' parents — his father, both her parents — suffered the ravages of the disease: blinding headaches, crippling loss of sensation in their limbs, insomnia and dizzy spells. Both Akinori and Itsuko increasingly feel the disease in their own bones as they age, in painful hand and leg aches and loss of feeling and coordination from eating tainted fish as children. "Now it's starting in my hands and fingers," said Itsuko as she picked strips of seaweed from her fishing nets in the morning sun. "They're turning white and are all bent."
Like the Moris, Japan has never fully recovered. Indeed, the disease played a large role in creating the Japan of today. It gave birth to the Japanese environmentalist movement, and like the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and the Union Carbide chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, it became an international cause celebre. It forced the country to face up to the price of the industrial miracle it built out of the wreckage of World War II, encouraged other victims of such negligence to sue for redress, and forced authorities to be much more attentive to protecting the public from the mistakes of Japan Inc. But the struggle over Minamata is far from finished. At least 2,000 victims have died. Even now, courts are forcing the government to recognize more victims, which some estimate at as many as 30,000. Many are confined to wheelchairs or bed, complaining that diagnosis and treatment are haphazard and inadequate...
The disaster in Minamata Bay began in silence. In the early 1950s, growing numbers of fish were found floating dead in the bay, which feeds into the Shiranui Sea. Then crows fell dead from the sky or crashed into rocks. Cats started gyrating in a bizarre "dance" before dropping dead. People were next. By the mid-1950s, villagers started suffering dizzy spells and troubles walking and speaking. Growing numbers fell into convulsions, wasted away and died. The name Minamata Disease was coined in 1956. From the beginning, it was a malady no one wanted to talk about. Victims, shunned by neighbors who feared the illness was contagious, hid behind closed doors. Fishermen suffered symptoms in silence, terrified that word of the disease would wreck their livelihood. Often it was the people most in danger who fought doctors trying to help them...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070929/ap_on_re_as/japan_poisonous_legacy;_ylt=ApeR6zrbdip_brYHuPYT6Qys0NUE
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