Sixty-one years have passed since the first case of Minamata disease was discovered in 1956 in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, but the issue of relief for victims of the disease — Japan's most serious industrial pollution-induced illness — remains unresolved. Originally the disease was found among people who ate fish contaminated with organic mercury contained in waste water released into Minamata Bay by a Chisso Corp. chemical plant. But studies by a group of doctors conducted over a span of 13 years show that many residents from inland areas away from the coastlines of Yatsushirokai Bay, of which Minamata Bay is a part, exhibit symptoms peculiar to the disease.
The government should conduct medical examines on all residents in areas where such symptoms have been detected. This should be the basis for comprehensive assistance covering all Minamata disease victims, who are believed to number between 100,000 and 200,000, since relief is provided only to those officially recognized to suffer from the disease.
The history of relief for Minamata disease victims has followed a zigzag course. Beginning in 1969, a person with even a single symptom of the disease was officially recognized as a patient and received a one-off allowance of between ¥10 million and ¥18 million, and medical aid from the polluters — Chisso and Showa Denko KK, which was responsible for a similar case of mercury poisoning that afflicted residents in the lower reaches of the Agano River in Niigata Prefecture. In 1977, however, the old Environment Agency adopted strict criteria for screening the victims — under which a sensation disorder must be accompanied by other symptoms if one is to be officially recognized as a patient of the disease. The criteria were so strict that those officially recognized as sufferers numbered fewer than 3,000. Many of unrecognized sufferers resorted to lawsuits seeking damages.