VI. Counteraction and unconcern

Public opinion was critical of the fishermen's direct action against the chemical company, though thinking varied as to the purported cause of the disease. Therefore, with the disease victims actually receiving monetary compensation, it was thought that the social conflict surrounding the Minamata disease had come to an end. With the start of the 1960s the problems laid bare by the Minamata disease were forgotten because of the overshadowing political and foreign-relations dimensions of the Japan-United States Security Treaty. The fishermen who were involved in the riot were punished. In order to come to some fair and definitive conclusion as to the causes of the disease, two third-party research groups were formed, one by the government and the other by the Japan Medical Association. Because of lack of funding the government group was disbanded within the year without reaching any conclusions. In spite of the fact that Dr. Tamiya of the Medical Department of Tokyo University - Japan's supposed authority on the subject, who was supported by the Chisso Chemical Company and other mercury-handling industries - was named convenor, the Japan Medical Association group was disbanded in 1962, also without reaching any conclusions. In this manner the issue was neutralized without the problems really being confronted.

Governmental funding for the Minamata disease research group at Kumamoto University was cut off, but the university continued its efforts to discover the causal mechanisms involved in the disease. In 1962 hygienics professor Irigayama was able to separate methyl mercury compounds from the catalytic wastes derived from acetaldehyde production processes. He made it very clear that these wastes were the cause of the Minamata disease, but he was ignored by much of the academic community. At the community hospital attached to the Chisso chemical complex, Dr. Hosokawa was working on orders from the company to provide evidence that would counter the methyl mercury poisoning theory, but he was able to convince Chisso executives that his original research should be continued in order that the Minamata disease cause be determined on the basis of company-developed methods. In 1962 Dr. Hosokawa came to the same conclusions about the cause of the disease as Kumamoto University's Professor Irigayama. However, the Chisso Company ordered that these findings be kept secret. At about the same time the Kumamoto prefectural government was doing research on levels of accumulated mercury found in human hair as indicators of mercury contamination in the body. The results of those efforts indicated high levels of mercury contamination in fishermen and their families who were living in communities surrounding Minamata City, but mercury contamination was also found in island communities in the Shiranui Sea. Unfortunately the results of this research were not announced and they passed into oblivion. Because of the heavy criticism that was brought to bear against the organic mercury theory advanced by Kumamoto University, Minamata disease recognition and designation was limited only to those patients where very special and obvious methyl mercury poisoning symptoms were recognizable as medical textbook cases. At the same time it must be remembered that the diagnosis of the disease in living patients was made for the purpose of getting monetary compensation from the chemical company, and these factors produced their own restrictive sociological consequences. As a result of these factors, there were no new disease patients discovered for a few years after 1960, and it was thereby concluded that the Minamata disease had run its course and was no longer a problem. During the early 1960s, then, the problems related to the Minamata disease were thought to be things of the past, and no more attention was paid to the particular issues involved. In Minamata City the greatest concern of the people had turned to a long strike in which the labour union was fighting a Chisso company plan to rationalize operations, but the company was victorious in that it was able to divide the labour union into smaller groups. Owing to a combination of all these factors, the problems of the Minamata disease were forgotten, and the victims themselves also wished to be left alone.