EDITORIAL: Minamata disease talks

Talks between the ruling coalition and opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) on a special measures bill to provide relief for people yet to be recognized as Minamata disease patients moved into the final phase Tuesday. As things stand now, however, any resolution will be a far cry from a lasting remedy.

Fifty-three years have passed since Minamata disease was first confirmed. With the advancing ages of the victims, a speedy resolution is a must for providing relief.

The ruling coalition has also indicated a willingness to compromise in the deliberations. While the targets for assistance were formerly limited to people with sensory disturbances, such as numbness in the hands and feet, the coalition appears ready to move closer to Minshuto's demands for broader assistance.

Splitting up Chisso Corp., the company that caused the deadly pollution, is a key issue in the talks. Minshuto formerly demanded that any such move be frozen until relief came through. But it now appears that the party is ready to accept the ruling coalition's proposal that dividing up that company is absolutely necessary to secure needed support funds.

Such a corporate breakup would create a parent company in charge of compensation and a subsidiary to carry on business operations, with the parent company selling its shares of the subsidiary to bankroll the indemnity. Future plans call for liquidating the parent, with the culprit firm effectively vanishing from the marketplace.

But if the perpetrator disappears, where can patients who develop symptoms in the future seek damages?

The corporate split-up, a ruling coalition proposal, was presented in combination with the lifting of regional specifications for the disease. This would comprise a final payout, accompanied by the termination of designated regions in which the pollution was widespread and the end of examinations to certify patients.

Victims' groups lambasted the idea, calling it liberation for the perpetrator rather than the victims. The ruling parties agreed to remove the provisions for dumping the regional stipulations.

In Minamata, though, this is viewed as no different than offering immunity for Chisso and lowering the curtain on further redress.

First off, a key reason for such long-term foot-dragging on relief for disease victims is that no damage investigation was ever done in the area of the Shiranui Sea in Kyushu where the contamination occurred.

This matter cannot be brought to rest without identifying the true conditions in the polluted area--a step incorporated into the Minshuto bill.

Even tougher to fathom is the failure of special measures bills, both the coalition and Minshuto versions, to touch upon the dual certification standards at the government and judiciary levels.

Under the 1977 criteria issued by the former Environment Agency, sensory disturbances alone were not enough to qualify a person as a patient of Minamata disease. Such ailments must exist in combination with a loss of muscular coordination or other health problems.

In 2004, the Supreme Court effectively negated this requirement, indicating its willingness to broadly expand the sphere of relief by recognizing patients suffering only from sensory troubles.

The Environment Ministry should have accepted the top court's ruling and retooled the certification criteria. Yet, perhaps apprehensive that the overall relief framework could collapse, the ministry has made no move to adjust its standards.

This leads back to the basic question of how to define Minamata disease. Before debating relief bills, a political decision should have been rendered to eliminate the dual standards.

This matter needs to be settled immediately.

However, any easygoing compromise will only create further problems in the saga of the Minamata disease, a tragedy now viewed as the true starting point for defining industrial pollution.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 1(IHT/Asahi: July 2,2009)