Minamata disease

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Classification according to ICD-10
T56.1 Toxic effect: mercury and its compounds
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

The Minamata disease ( Japanese : 水俣病 , Minamata byō ) is a chronic poisoning by organic mercury compounds ( mercury poisoning ), the first time the mid-1950s along the Japanese Yatsushiro Sea in the area of the city Minamata occurred. Symptoms are initially only tiredness, headache and body aches, later ataxia , paralysis , psychosis , in severe cases coma . The disease is often fatal.

Background and story

Minamata became known around the world for environmental damage caused by uncontrolled dumping of waste when damage to the central nervous system of humans and animals became evident in the town in the mid-1950s , which could soon be attributed to the ingestion of mercury compounds from food and drinking water. The chemical company Chisso, which had an acetaldehyde plant on site, initially denied any connection, although it had already established in its own series of tests that the wastewater from acetaldehyde production caused exactly the symptoms observed in animals. The mercury compounds are used as a catalyst to produce acetaldehyde.

Only after a state investigation did the company have to admit that the discharge of methylmercury iodide into the seawater had led to a dramatic accumulation of mercury compounds in the seaweed and thus in the fish, the main food of the inhabitants of the coastal town. According to current estimates, around 17,000 people were more or less seriously harmed by the mercury compounds, but up to the year 2000 only 2,265 people were officially recognized as victims of Minamata disease. About 3,000 are believed to have died from the poisoning.

The photo reports by W. Eugene Smith , who lived and photographed in Minamata for several years and published his pictures in Life and in a book, as well as the Japanese author Michiko Ishimure with the book Paradise in the Sea, played a major role in the publication and ultimately clarification of the case der Toren and the Japanese documentary filmmaker Noriaki Tsuchimoto with his 1971 film Minamata - the victims and their illness .

A second case of such a mass disease in Japan occurred in 1964 on the Agano River in Kanose (today: Aga ) in Niigata Prefecture , where the Shōwa Denkō company operated the same production process as Chisso in Minamata (Niigata Minamata Disease ( 新潟 水 俣 病 , Niigata-Minamata-byō ), also called the second Minamata disease ( 第二 水 俣 病 , Dai-ni Minamata-byō )). Other cases of Minamata disease have occurred along the Songhua River in China , Canada and Tanzania . In 1999 , Japanese scientists were also able to prove Minamata disease in Indians in the Amazon . Here, mercury got into the river water when panning for gold .

United Nations Global Program

The United Nations have in their United Nations Environmental Program Governing Council mercury since 2001 on the list of regulated substances of global pollution . In 2013, the Minamata Convention to Curb Mercury Emissions was signed.

Epidemiological studies

For some years now, more and more epidemiological studies have been carried out to investigate the neurophysiological effects of low-threshold exposure to mercury. For example, from 2006 to 2011 a prospective study was carried out in the Mediterranean region with 1,700 mother / child pairs in which mercury and other metals were measured in maternal hair samples and umbilical cord blood samples. Eighteen months after birth, the children's neurological development was determined using the Bayley scale (3rd edition). The authors hope that the planned follow-up / long-term studies will provide a better understanding of the neurophysiological effects of mercury and other elements in children.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Minamata Disease  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nicole Zingsheim: ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) according to Japanese law . Bonn 2003, p. 338 , urn : nbn: de: hbz: 5-02843 (dissertation).
  2. ↑ Dae-Seon Kim, Kyunghee Choi: Global trends in mercury management . In: Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health . tape 45 , no. 6 , November 29, 2012, p. 364-373 , doi : 10.3961 / jpmph.2012.45.6.364 , PMID 23230466 .
  3. ↑ Francesca Valent, Milena Horvat, Aikaterini Sofianou-Katsoulis, Zdravko Spiric, Darja Mazej, D'Anna Little, Alexia Prasouli, Marika Mariuz, Giorgio Tamburlini, Sheena Nakou, Fabio Barbone: Neurodevelopmental effects of low-level prenatal mercury exposure from maternal fish Consumption in a Mediterranean cohort: study rationale and design . In: Journal of Epidemiology / Japan Epidemiological Association . tape 23 , no. 2 , 2013, p. 146-152 , PMID 23269124 .