Word: minamata
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Chisso's trouble began in 1950 after it opened in the fishing port of Minamata an acetaldehyde factory that began to discharge effluents into Minamata Bay. One of the waste substances: a highly toxic methyl mercury compound that was passed up the food chain from tiny organisms to small fish to the larger fish that comprise a substantial part of the townspeople's diet. By 1953 the mercury contamination had reached a dangerous level in some people, who began to suffer the crippling symptoms of what is now referred to as Minamata disease. Howling in pain and racked...
...even harder problem was how to compensate the victims of Minamata disease. Many sufferers had been given court-ordered awards by Chisso in 1970. But under what has come to be known as the three-P policy (polluters pay for pollution), another group of victims sued for more money, and the courts upheld the suit. As a result, Chisso so far has had to pay the staggering sum of $67.3 million to 793 victims. As the less serious cases are identified-and there are 2,700 suspected victims still to be given official medical examinations-Chisso will be liable...
...Prime Minister Takeo Miki points out that "Chisso wants the loan to pay not for the consequences of pollution but to repair its damaged production system." Then, too, says Labor Leader Kaoru Ohta, if Chisso were to go bankrupt, there would be no compensation for the remaining Minamata victims-nor would there be jobs for the company's 1,500 workers and those of its subcontractors. "PPP is fine with me," Ohta says, "but the government should grant that loan." Even if it does, however, Chisso for a long time to come will have to contend with a fourth...
...only the trees are sickening and dying. The pollution has also caused some frightening and hitherto unknown illnesses among humans. First came the so-called Minamata Disease, caused by a fertilizer plant dumping methyl mercury into a bay near the town of Minamata; it produced in its victims an appalling array of eye and brain damages. Another painful new disease called itai-itai (literally, ouch-ouch) derived from cadmium flowing into the Jintsu River from a mining and smelting factory. Its symptoms: a softening and finally a breaking of the bones. Then, two years ago, a wave of smog-associated...
...families of the Minamata victims have engaged in demonstrations and sit-ins that have captured the attention of the Japanese public. Recently, in the absence of government intervention, they began a drive to buy control of the offending company's stocks in a final desperate attempt to end the poisoning...