BITTER SEA
The Human Cost of Minamata Disease
by Akio Mishima
with a foreword by Lester R. Brown
In the mid-1950s the first
sufferers of a mysterious illness that attacked the central nervous system,
killing its victims or condemning them to permanent, painful disability,
were identified in Minamata, a city on the west coast of the Japanese island
of Kyushu. Minamata disease, as the disorder was named, was found to be
caused by mercury released into the sea in effluent from the Minamata plant
of Chisso Corporation, a major manufacturer of chemicals. This book chronicles
the devastation wreaked by Minamata disease, business and government attempts
to cover up the problem, and the victims' long struggle for recognition
and redress. While the events related occurred in Japan, the lesson they
teach is universal: the insatiable desire for economic growth does irreparable
harm to people, and to our planet.
AKIO MISHIMA, formerly a senior staff writer for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, is a director of the Society for Green Civilization, an environmental study group. He has written prolifically on environmental problems.
LESTER R. BROWN is president of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D. C.
248 pp. 13.5 cm. x 21 cm. 16 pp. photos. (softcover)
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