The immediate effect was the death of fish at the mouth of the river, and from that point on, new Minamata disease victims began to appear in other fishing villages up and down the coast of the Shiranui Sea, as the pollution spread over an even greater area.Chisso failed to co-operate with the Kumadai research team. It withheld information on its industrial processes, leaving researchers to speculate what products the factory was producing and by what methods. The Chisso factorys hospital director, Hajime Hosokawa, established a laboratory in the research division of the facility to carry out his own experiments into Minamata disease in July 1959. Food to which factory wastewater had been added was fed to healthy cats. Seventy-eight days into the experiment, cat 400 exhibited symptoms of Minamata disease and pathological examinations confirmed a diagnosis of organic mercury poisoning. Chisso did not reveal these significant results to the investigators and ordered Hosokawa to stop his research.In an attempt to undermine Kumadai researchers organic mercury theory, Chisso and other parties with a vested interest that the factory remain open (including the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Japan Chemical Industry Association) funded research into alternative causes of the disease, other than its own waste. Compensation of fishermen and patients, 1959
Polluting wastewater had damaged the fisheries around Minamata ever since the opening of the Chisso factory in 1908.
ISBN 0-425-18999-6
Approaches to Water Pollution Control, Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture
Allchin, Douglas. The Poisoning of Minamata
Saito, Hisashi. (2009). Niigata Minamata Disease:  Methyl Mercury Poisoning in Niigata, Japan. Niigata Nippo. Walker, Brett. (2010) "Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan." University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98954-8

External links

ATSDR – ToxFAQs: Mercury – Frequently asked questions about Mercury
National Institute for Minamata Disease
Minamata Disease: The History and Measures – The Ministry of the Environments summary of Minamata disease
Soshisha – The Supporting Center for Minamata Disease and the Minamata Disease Museum
Aileen Archive – Copyright holder of W. Eugene Smiths Minamata photos
Photograph by W. Eugene Smith – Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, 1972
Minamata disease – Chapter from Industrial Pollution in Japan by Dr Jun Ui
Toxic Archipelago: Industrial Pollution in Japan – A talk by Brett Walker, September 16, 2010
Minamata Timeline by Minamata City Council. Minamata disease museum