Bitter Sea: The Human Cost of Minamata Disease

Rating:
Summary: Minamata bay and organic mercury poisoning
Review: The book covers the effect of Minamata disease upon those who suffered organic mercury poisoning as a result of eating fish form Minamata Bay in great detail. Similarly it goes into detail about how the Chisso Coperation (which was responsible for the polluting of the bay) consistently tired to first to cover up its responsibility for polluting the bay, and later its efforts to intimidate and discredit the victims of Minamata disease and their supporters. In this area the book does a very thorough job. The book however covers the cause of Minamata disease, organic mercury poisoning only periferally. I found this to be a flaw in the book. Although met as a "human history" of the effects of the organic mercury poisoning of Minamata Bay, the book still needed to cover several things. For example, how the mercury moved through the food chain, and how it finally caused severe disease and deaths in humans should have been covered. Adding this information would have greatly improved the reader's understanding of Minamata disease and made the book much more powerful. Still the book is very good and largely does what the author intended - to show both the suffering of the Minamata disease victims, as well as the extreme corperate irresponsiblity that led to so much human suffering and destruction of the environment. For those interested in a historical event which had a great effect on the environmental movement, as well as our understanding of how pollutnants can move through the foodchain the ultamately effect human health, I recommend the book.