![]() ![]() He autopsied it and confirmed that the disease was caused by the factory waste. He among other things fed factory waste to cats, and in the fall of 1959, his famous Cat Number 400 died of symptoms of the strange disease. Hosokawa who had first reported the disease. ![]() The company of course denied any responsibility, but within the company there were secret experiments carried out by that same Dr. Hosokawa to the public health office, and a research group was set up based at the prefectural university. GEORGE: Well, the symptoms and the disease were reported by this Dr. How did the company and ultimately the government respond? YOUNG: So now there's evidence that something is wrong. GEORGE: It attacks the central nervous system, nerves throughout the body and the brain itself. YOUNG: Well, and in humans the symptoms were difficulty walking, talking, eating, convulsions because mercury poisoning does what? It was first officially reported in 1956 by the best doctor at the best hospital in town, which happened to be the factory hospital, when a couple of young girls were brought to him with symptoms. So one of the early names for this unknown disease was the dancing cat disease. GEORGE: Well, there were some hints early on, but it didn't become plainly obvious until the early- to mid-1950s, when fishing families noticed that their cats were going crazy gyrating, dancing and sometimes jumping into the sea. YOUNG: And when did residents realize they were having these health problems? Over time that was accumulated and concentrated in the food chain and then consumed by everyone and everything that ate fish and shellfish. And they were using mercury as a catalyst in that process, and the organic mercury was dumped directly into the ocean. TIMOTHY GEORGE: In Minamata in 1908, a chemical factory was built by the company that later came to be called Chisso, and in 1932 they started making a chemical called acetaldehyde, which is used with other chemicals to make plastics. And Tim, what happened at the Chisso Plant? He joins us from Rhode Island Public Radio. Minamata disease was officially recognized in 1956, and those effects continue today.Īs Japan deals with another environmental disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, what have they learned from Minamata? Timothy George is professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. Residents began noticing symptoms of poisoning. In 1932, the Chisso Chemical Plant in Minamata, Japan, began releasing methyl mercury into the ocean. The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a sober tribute to the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in history. The treaty calls on governments to cut down mercury from coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities, to phase down the use of mercury dental fillings, to close mercury mines. ![]() Representatives from some 140 countries are in Japan today to finalize an agreement to reduce mercury pollution, mercury pollution known to cause birth defects and brain damage. ![]()
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