Several leading psychiatrists and neurologists have condemned experts who endorsed government standards that are said to have excluded many people from recognition as Minamata disease patients, it was learned Sunday.
In a position paper released Saturday, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology claimed that medical experts and doctors had "failed to perform their duties sufficiently and played the role of perpetrators" by endorsing the government's 1977 standards.
Minamata disease resulted from the dumping of mercury compounds into Minamata Bay in southern Kumamoto Prefecture by chemical firm Chisso Corp. Many people in Minamata died or suffered disabilities because of the disease in the 1950s and 1960s.
A panel of medical experts endorsed the standards in 1985, stating that they were "reasonable from a medical standpoint." The panel's view was offered at the behest of the then Environment Agency.