Minamata Disease came from a severe health crisis that occurred in Japan between 1932-1968. Minamata Disease is a very severe and deadly neurological syndrome caused by severe ,mercury poisoning. A waterfront town was exposed to methyl mercury, the most deadly form of mercury, when a chemical company released methyl mercury into the waters. The name of this town is Minamata, hence the name of the disease. The local residents, including animals, became very sick from the water and seafood. Bio-accumulation is when small organism is contaminated and a larger one eats it, the larger one then becomes contaminated. This continues on up the food chain, this causes larger animals and seafood to become very toxic.
The Chisso chemical company was ordered to pay close to $100 million in damages but this can never compensate for the lives they destroyed through willful neglect. Symptoms include difficulty walking, difficulty talking, and convulsions. Crows fell from the sky dead, fish float dead on the water and cats move erratically, go mad, and die. Minamata Disease is also called ‘Dancing Cat Disease’ based on what the mercury poisoning did to cats.
There was so much mercury in the water and sludge that the company actually set up a process to recover the mercury and sell it! This amounts to a massive admission of guilt. In 1968 the Japanese government officially acknowledged the disease. It ironically happened only 4 months after the Chisso company stopped using mercury, draw your own conclusions from this ‘coincidence’.
Heavy metals, including mercury, are passed in vitro, from mother to baby. It takes 4 generations for heavy metals to disappear from the gene line. This assumes that continued exposure is stopped, which is very unlikely in Minamata. To this day the residents of Minamata experience extremely high incidents of diseases like Cerebral Palsy, all forms of cancer, slurred speech and difficulty walking. More details here
Treating Minamata Disease
The oral chelation protocol using DMSA Synergy is a simple 3 day “on” DMSA and 11 days “off” DMSA protocol. It is unlikely that the minamata disaster and minamata disease will ever happen again but it could. Hopefully they will know to use DMSA to help people if minamata disease ever shows itself again.