Reconsider the criterion used for screening the disease.

The Supreme Court recently took issue with the way sufferers of Minamata disease gain government certification that allows them to receive compensation. The court's decision resulted from a lawsuit brought by a group of patients in the Kansai region. Since then, new applications have poured in from people whose previous attempts to gain government certification all failed. The political settlement reached by the government in 1995 left ambiguous the definition of what constitutes a Minamata disease patient.

It is outrageous for the administrative branch of government to obstinately stick to its criterion now that the nation's highest court has rejected it. The Environment Ministry must take a new look at its yardstick and work out new arrangements to help those who need help.

More than 100 applications have been filed with the prefectural governments of Kumamoto and Kagoshima, which handle applications for recognition, since the Supreme Court handed down its decision. Faced with trying to juggle different criterion used by the Environment Ministry and the Supreme Court, the Kumamoto government said it was impossible to judge the relevance of the applications. It asked the Environment Ministry to respond to the Supreme Court's decision.

But the Environment Ministry argued that the Supreme Court ruled merely that the plaintiffs were suffering from organic mercury poisoning. It said the court's decision did not mention Minamata disease as stipulated in the law for compensating victims of environmental pollution. Therefore, it said there was no need to reconsider the criterion for screening patients of Minamata disease.

Does the Environment Ministry really believe its reasoning holds water? Effluent containing organic mercury compounds discharged from the Chisso Corp. plant in Minamata contaminated waters in the Yatsushiro Sea and residents who ate fish contaminated by the seawater fell sick. The physical disorder that disables consumers of such contaminated fish is called Minamata disease.

In 1971, the then Environment Agency made public its view that a sick person whose disease cannot be said to be free from effects of organic mercury compounds should be considered to be suffering from Minamata disease. Before the ministry issued that view, a much stricter criterion had been applied in judging whether a patient was suffering from Minamata disease.

In 1973, Chisso was defeated in a lawsuit brought against it by the first group of Minamata-disease patients. The company promised to pay compensation amounting to 16 million to 18 million yen each to other patients who did not take part in the lawsuit. Thus, the recognition of patients as suffering from Minamata disease by the authorities became shorthand for compensation.

Perhaps, the amount of compensation should have been broken into more minute classifications-depending on the degree of disability. At that time, patients feared such re-classification would lead to smaller amounts of compensation. The central and local governments did not take the trouble of re-classifying patients. Instead, they adopted stricter criterion for screening Minamata disease patients.

The ongoing criterion, adopted in 1977, says someone with Minamata disease has the following symptoms: an inability to walk straight, difficulties with vision and other symptoms besides numbness in the hands and feet. Under this criterion, most applications for recognition as Minamata disease patients have been rejected.

In other words, the present criterion was used to weed out patients who do not deserve compensation worth more than 16 million yen. In handing down the sentence in the latest lawsuit, by contrast, the Supreme Court recognized plaintiffs as ``suffering from poisoning by organic mercury compounds in consideration of only the numbness of the four limbs as well as their record of daily lives,'' thus easing the criterion for screening patients of Minamata disease. It ruled they should be paid compensation amounting to 4.5 million to 8.5 million yen each.

What the Environment Ministry should do is obvious: It should reconsider its criterion for screening patients of Minamata disease purely from a medical standpoint and decide on the amounts of compensation for various groups of patients according to the degree of their disability.

In 2006, 50 years will have passed since the first known patient contracted the disease. If the Environment Ministry does not change its policy now, it will leave an indelible blemish in its history.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 20(IHT/Asahi: December 21,2004)