Japan remembers Minamata victims (BBC){Minamata disease/mercury poisoning}

[eppur_se_muova]

Events are taking place in Japan in memory of victims of a condition caused by mercury poisoning, 50 years after it was first officially reported.

A memorial was unveiled in the southern town of Minamata on Sunday, while a commemorative service is due on Monday.

The condition, Minamata disease, has claimed 2,000 lives, but thousands more say they have been affected by it.

The neurological disorder is linked to eating fish from waters polluted by mercury dumped by a chemical firm.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4959562.stm

This brings back chilling memories of a photoessay in Life magazine back in the late 60's or early 70's (IIRC) ... one of the victims was a teenaged girl who had been born deaf, dumb, blind, and paralyzed ... her mother bathed her every day. She could not communicate at all.

Years later, I bought an album ("Insights") by the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Jazz Orchestra which featured a "Minamata Suite" -- the second movement was entitled "Prosperity and Consequences" and inevitably reminded me of those photographs. A few years later, I learned that "Minamata disease" was the name given to the health problems caused by eating methyl mercury-contaminated fish. It was a lot harder to enjoy the music after that, even though it's great music.

I used to think mercury was fascinating stuff, and it has all manner of technical and scientific applications, but it turns out to be a subtle and insidious poison. Until the late/mid-20th century, it wasn't known just how subtle and insidious.

(Edit to credit BBC. Oooooops!)

[Sal Minella]

1. I remember the photographs in LIFE magazine. The mother

was a healthy, vigorous looking woman, with the immobile stick-like form of her daughter in the bath, in her mother's arms. And we haven't learned yet that dumping foul things into waterways does not "get rid" of them.

We do all live downstream now.

[PDJane]

2. Especially since much US electricity

Is generated by coal fired plants. Coal is one of the worst mercury polluters....and, although the technology exists to "scrub" the effluvia, it isn't done.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Find out how much mercury your state emits each year.

Mercury Falling

An Analysis of Mercury Pollution from Coal-Burning Power Plants (1998)
http://www.ewg.org/reports_content/mercuryfalling/mercuryfalling.pdf

Half of all mercury pollution from power plants comes from the 8 Worst offending states in 1998, pg. 15 PDF:

TX - 20,054 pounds
OH - 15,156 pounds
Pa. - 17,745 pounds
IN - 9940 "
IL - 9590 "
WV - 9161 "
KY - 7174 "
AL - 6896 "

Mercury NEVER disappears from the environment. Keep in mind that a drop of mercury in a ten acre lake renders the fish inedible.

Also keep in mind that these figures are only for coal-burning power plants. Other industries contribute also. Steel, scrap and automobile recycling industries are among the worst after the power plants.

The * administration has fought for the right of these polluters to put even more of this deadly neurotoxin into the environment.


Minamata continues to live with the insidious effects of the poisoning even after all these years. A horrible tragedy.

[Dead_Parrot]

4. That's why we need clean coal!

:sarcasm: who those who still don't get it.

[depakid]

5. That was a great article!

Personally, I both love and hate the guy.

[Javaman]

6. Coal is clean...

In that filthy sort of way. LOL