It has subsequently been withdrawn from circulation at the request of Tomokos family, so does not appear in recent anthologies of Smiths works. Smith and his wife were extremely dedicated to the cause of the people with  Minamata disease, closely documenting their struggle for recognition and right to compensation. Smith was himself attacked and seriously injured by Chisso employees in an incident in Goi, Ichihara city, near Tokyo on January 7, 1972, in an attempt to stop the photographer from further revealing the issue to the world. The 54-year-old Smith survived the attack, but his sight in one eye deteriorated and his health never fully recovered before his death in 1978. Johnny Depp plays W. Eugene Smith in Minamata (2020) a drama based on the book written by Smiths wife. Japanese photographer Takeshi Ishikawa, who assisted Smith in Minamata, has since exhibited his own photographs documenting the disease. His photographs cover the years 1971 to the present, with Minamata victims as his subjects.The prominent Japanese documentary filmmaker Noriaki Tsuchimoto made a series of films, starting with Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971) and including The Shiranui Sea (1975), documenting the incident and siding with the victims in their struggle against Chisso and the government. Kikujiro Fukushima, a well-known Japanese photographer and journalist, published a series of photographs in 1980 concerning pollution in Japan, including Minamata disease. Some negatives of these photos are available on the website, and Kyodo News Images holds the rights to them.
When this produced no results, the alliance members took their campaign to Tokyo, securing an official visit to Minamata by members of the Japanese Diet. During the visit on 2 November, alliance members forced their way into the factory and rioted, causing many injuries and ¥10 million ($100,000) worth of damage. The violence was covered widely in the media, bringing the nations attention to the Minamata issue for the first time since the outbreak began. Another mediation committee was set up, and an agreement was hammered out and signed on 17 December. Some ¥25 million of "sympathy money" was paid to the alliance and a ¥65 million fishing recovery fund was established. In 1959, the people with  Minamata disease were in a much weaker position than the fishermen. The recently formed Minamata Disease Patients Families Mutual Aid Society was much more divided than the fishing cooperatives. Patients families were the victims of discrimination and ostracism from the local community. Local people felt that the company (and their city that depended upon it) was facing economic ruin. To some patients, this ostracism by the community represented a greater fear than the disease itself. After beginning a sit-in at the Chisso factory gates in November 1959, the patients asked Kumamoto Prefecture Governor Hirosaku Teramoto to include the patients request for compensation with the mediation that was ongoing with the prefectural fishing alliance. Chisso agreed and after a few weeks further negotiation, another "sympathy money" agreement was signed.