Minamata, Japan methyl mercury incident

Another major incident concerning methyl mercury was the severe pollution of Minamata bay in Japan (see Box 8.1). Here fish, fish-eating and scavenging birds, and humans feeding upon fish all died from organomercury poisoning. There may have been localized declines of marine species in this area due to methyl mercury, but there is no clear evidence of this. 

An epidemic of intoxication from ingestion of fish contaminated with methyl mercury occurred in the Minamata district in Japan, and, as a result, methyl mercury intoxication is often referred to as Minamata disease." Infants born to mothers with exposure to large amounts of methyl mercury had microen-cephaly, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy with convulsions. In an incidence in Iraq, ingestion of wheat products contaminated with methyl mercury fungicide by pregnant women caused similar symptoms of neurological damage and mental retardation. The fetus is... 

Alkyl compounds of mercury (RHgX) and other organomercury compounds (i.e., methyl mercury) are strong irritants (eye, mucous membranes and skin), the latter with a direct effect on chromosomes. In fact, Minamata disease is termed after the methyl mercury intoxication incidence observed in the fish meat in Minamata, Japan, which produced neurological damage and mental retardation in newborn babies [42]. 

Other incidents— the oily, black, carcinogen-laden liquids that heavy rains brought to the ground surface of Love Canal, a community built on a toxic chemical dump mercury dumped from a chemical plant into the estuary at Minamata, Japan, which caused paralysis and mental disorders in thousands of people and death for several hundred and in 1984 the methyl isocyanate leak in Bhopal, India, that killed some 2000 people and injured tens of thousands more— have not helped the negative image of chemistry. 

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