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In the problem of Minamata disease this was a situation that started 

 about 1953 in Minamata down in the southeastern portion of Japan on 

 the island of Kyushu. I was called in by the National Institute of 

 Neurological Diseases and Blindness. We went down there because a 

 number of people had been involved ; at that time about 83 persons had 

 ingested various types of marine organisms, ranging from seaweed to 

 shellfish, crabs, various fish, et cetera, and these people were develop- 

 ing a wide array of neurological disorders. 



Some of them were lisping ; some of them lost their motor coordina- 

 tion. Some of them were suffering from blindness. Before they had 

 finished approximately one-third of them died. In the early stages of 

 this study we were unable to determine what actually took place. 



Japanese scientists spent a great deal of time and effort on this prob- 

 lem. Finally it was determined that there was a large chemical and 

 fertilizer plant that was located on the outskirts of town, and it was 

 producing a toxic effluent of some type. 



If you look on a map it seems that there was a peninsula that ex- 

 tended out from this fertilizer plant. To the north was the open sea 

 and to the south was a bay that had a restricted water circulation. 

 They had a long effluent line that extended from the plant to the open 

 sea. 



The effluent line through which they discharged their industrial 

 wastes became somewhat of a problem because of maintenance, and 

 so they decided to reduce the length of the line by having it empty 

 into Minamata Bay. 



Wlien they did this with the restricted circulation of the bay the 

 pollutants began to build up very rapidly. The line was shifted about 

 1950 and by 1953 they were already beginning to pick up cases of out- 

 breaks of Minamata disease in which there was massive destruction of 

 the central nervous system of these victims. 



As we got into this problem, and when I say we, I am speaking about 

 everybody involved over a period of about 10 years or more, it was 

 finally determined that the causative agent was an organic mercurial 

 compound, an industrial waste product which, at the time it was being 

 dumped, apparently went by undetected. They did not realize they 

 were dumping a highly toxic agent into Minamata Bay. 



The significance of this situation is this : That here was a manmade 

 contaminant that came from an industrial plant that was very vital to 

 the local economy of the people of Minamata. 



But this very important industrial development was at the same 

 time causing death to these people and while it was producing an in- 

 come on the one hand it was destroying a valuable marine resource 

 on the other. 



Just last November I participated with the World Health Organiza- 

 tion in a series of meetings in Geneva to discuss some of these prob- 

 lems. Today we see this same Minamata problem taking place in the 

 North Sea, specifically in the country of Sweden, and elsewhere. 



We see other types of contaminants being produced on an enormous 

 scale. I want to point out that some of these contaminants, and I am 

 talking about industrial toxic chemical substances, become intimately 

 involved in the marine organisms of these polluted waters and we find 

 that they are involved in the entire food web as it were so that we see- 



