Tag: Minimata Disease

LIDIA WASOWICZ, UPI, OCTOBER 20, 2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20 (UPI) — Researchers analyzing new study results have concluded the government at least partly botched its job when it was assessing the danger posed by the mercury-based preservative thimerosal that once was widely used in children’s vaccines. The story begins in the fall of 1971…

THE JAPAN TIMES, OCTOBER 3, 2006 This year marked the 50th anniversary of the official recognition of Minamata disease, a symbol of postwar industrial pollution in Japan. But the episode of massive organic mercury poisoning is not a thing of the past. On Aug. 11, a group of 100 people who have not been officially…

The Japan Times, September 19, 2006 KEIJI HIRANO Wako University is holding an exhibition through Sept. 24 on Minamata disease at its campus in Machida, western Tokyo, aiming to show how the mercury-poisoning disease has affected Japan’s postwar society. The exhibition is being held to mark the 50th anniversary of official recognition of one of…

CLAUDIA REED, TWN, SEPTEMBER 9, 2006 Those planning a fishing trip to Lake Mendocino or Lake Sonoma might want to consider calling it off. In both lakes, mercury contamination in fish species at the top of the food chain now exceeds recommended safety levels, particularly for young people, nursing mothers, and pregnant women, according to…

CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON, SEA SHEPHERD SOCIETY It looks like the fish are turning the tables on humanity. Not by choice but because ecological realities have boomeranged back upon humankind. Tins of tuna fish now contain warnings that the product should not be eaten by pregnant women or young children because of high levels of mercury…

DR STEPHEN JUAN, KULY 14, 2006 It is now 50 years since the most horrific mercury poisoning disaster the world has ever seen took place in Minamata, Japan. In May 1956, four patients from the city of Minamata on the west coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu were admitted to hospital with the…

DIANE DIETZ, THE REGISTER GUARD, JUNE 27, 2006 The last of Oregon’s commercial mercury mines shut down years ago, yet mining is still the major source of mercury pollution in the state’s waterways. Mercury-laced waters pouring from abandoned mine tunnels and washing out of old mine tailings piles have made it unhealthy to eat a…

JAPAN TIMES, JUNE 20, 2006 People with Minamata disease still face discrimination and prejudice half a century after the official recognition of the mercury-poisoning disease, they said at a public forum in Tokyo. Speaking at the forum Sunday — in which more than 100 people, including patients and their supporters, took part — Hideki Sato,…

June 9 (Bloomberg) — Hideki Sato was a toddler when the cats in his native Minamata city started “dancing” in the streets. He was 13 before Japan’s government said pollution was to blame and chemical company Chisso Corp. stopped dumping methyl mercury in the bay. By then, 1,573 people were dead or dying. Supreme Court…

ERIC JOHNSTON, MAY 12, 2006 “The most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority.’ Henrik Ibsen, “An Enemy of the People.’ As public spaces in Japan go, Minamata’s Eco Park is quite pleasant. Unlike the “Designed by local elders and built by a yakuza-linked construction firm now under indictment’ concrete…

TAKETO KATO, WRITING IN THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, MAY 10, 2006 The innocent Shiranui Sea sits out there shimmering in the warm spring sunshine. The briny waters and the sea bed are filled with life and procreation. On the shore, new leaves are shooting from the trees, while wild flowers carpet the ground. The way this…

It is only the sea I can trust. When people tell me that the sea is dirty I curse them, I want to strike them. The sea ‘dirty’? How dare they say the sea is dirty! It is not the sea that wrongs. The sea has done nothing wrong. The sea is my life. The…

Japan Economic Newswire A woman told a public meeting in the city of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, on Sunday of the hardships Minamata disease had caused her family, saying, “We led lives like stray cats.” Her two younger sisters were among the four people in Minamata who were reported as having a “strange disease” on May…

Japan Economic Newswire MINAMATA, Japan, May 1_(Kyodo) KEY EVENTS RELATED TO MINAMATA DISEASE August 1908 — Chisso Corp. starts operations at its factory in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture. May 1932 — Chisso starts producing acetaldehyde at the Minamata factory. May 1956 — A local health center in Minamata receives a report about four patients suffering unexplained…