When was IPEN’s Solidarity Statement introduced? Finally, the Minamata victims’ groups want a health and welfare system established that will enable residents to live secure lives. They want the contaminated areas around Minamata Bay to be cleaned up. They want to ensure that the Polluter Pays Principle is fully and properly implemented. They want a comprehensive health study of people in the impacted areas. Victims’ groups want all victims to be recognized and compensated. More than fifty years have passed since Minamata disease was first diagnosed and victims’ groups remain dissatisfied with the responses to this tragedy by the Government of Japan and the Chisso Corporation. A congenital form of mercury poisoning can also affect fetuses in the womb.Īs a result of the immense poisoning in Minamata, mercury poisoning is now sometimes referred to as “Minamata Disease.” Why stand in solidarity with Minamata victims and victims’ groups?

In extreme cases, paralysis, coma and death can occur.

Symptoms of mercury poisoning include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision, and damage to hearing and speech. Tens of thousands of people were affected. The residents of Minamata, not realizing there was danger in doing so, ate fish and shellfish from the Bay (and the Shiranui Sea), which resulted in widespread mercury poisoning. From 1932 to 1968, the Chisso Corporation released methylmercury in wastewater from its chemical factory into the Minamata Bay, and it bio-accumulated in fish and shellfish.

Minamata mercury poisoning