Mercury Pollution in Minamata

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

It overviews the poisoning which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s among the residents in Minamata who ate seafood contaminated with methylmercury discharged from the chemical factory, Chisso Corporation. It describes the history, symptoms pathogenesis and research on the causal agent, and discusses the responses of Chisso and the national and local governments to the outbreak, the victims, the compensation and environmental restructuring a...