JAPAN: High mercury levels in dolphin-hunting town of Japan's Taiji have no ill effects, researchers say

Record ID: 464231

  • Title: JAPAN: High mercury levels in dolphin-hunting town of Japan's Taiji have no ill effects, researchers say
  • Date: 12th May 2010
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 27th May 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA7S6SRQZ46RIU2MONJ0ADR8V0U
  • Story Text: Researchers find high levels of mercury in residents from Japan's dolphin hunting town Taiji, but say there are no ill effects.
    Japanese researchers have found high-mercury levels in residents of the coastal Japanese town of Taiji, but the residents have no related illnesses from the high levels of the chemical.
    The sleepy town of Taiji was thrust into the spotlight, thanks to last year's Oscar winning documentary "The Cove", which is about the the town's hunt of dolphins.
    Renowned for its hunt of dolphins and whales, the town has come under pressure in recent years from environmental campaigners that have claimed that the consumption of whale and dolphin meat is poisoning Taiji residents through high-mercury levels which can cause everything from damage to speech and hearing to paralysis and even death.
    Recently, fishermen, local government officials and towns residents gathered in an area just above Taiji Town for an annual ceremony where the community gave thanks and offered prayers for the whales and dolphins lost in the year's harvest.
    Although the town has been under pressure, those at the gathering such as Katoshi Mihara, chairman of the local Taiji council, explained that the decision to undertake the survey was not related to outside pressure.
    "Illnesses related to aging, diabetes, there are a lot of different things and we are looking at mercury as part of a larger whole. So this examination is part of a larger whole. This isn't because people on the outside are telling us that our mercury levels are high but part of the data being assembled for our town's overall health program," Mihara explained.
    Last year, the Taiji local government commissioned a survey to measure mercury levels within the local population and to assess the effects mercury has had on health within the local population.
    The organization that conducted the study was the government funded National Institute for Minamata Disease (NIMD), a centre founded to help study the effects of mercury poisoning after the town of Minamata in Kumamoto prefecture came to be synonymous with mercury poisoning.
    Between 1932 and 1968, the Chisso corporation's chemical factory released methyl mercury into Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea. Local residents eating fish and shell fish caught in the area contracted a neurological syndrome that came to be known as Minamata Disease.
    Just over 100 Taiji residents gathered at the town's community center on May 9th to hear the NIMD scientists announce preliminary findings of the survey which gathered hair samples of 1,337 people out of Taiji's population of 3,500 to measure mercury levels.
    Coming out of the closed meeting, Mihara explained that he felt that the survey was beneficial to the town.
    "The conclusion of the report was that scientists found no evidence of (medical) disorders. So while continuing to cooperate with the survey in the future I am expecting that it will lead to a good conclusion," Mihara said.
    182 participants of the survey were taken to the NIMD center in Minamata to receive a series of neurological tests designed to detect disorders arising from mercury poisoning and despite high levels of mercury content, NIMD director, Koji Okamoto, announced that scientists did not find evidence of illness attributable to methyl mercury poisoning.
    "Regarding effects on the health of survey participants, we did not find evidence of poisoning attributable to methyl mercury in any participant that we examined," Okamoto told journalist in a news conference after informing residents.
    He warned however that these are preliminary findings and results are only applicable to the 182 participants that received the neurological examinations although the sample examined did however include participants with the highest mercury levels measured in the survey.
    Although archive footage of victims of Minamata disease shown in the documentary film "The Cove" has been used to emphasize that mercury poisoning can be harmful, Okamoto said that he believed this to be "inappropriate".
    "On this survey we did not find evidence of (mercury causing disease.) So I think that using archive footage from the past of patients who are seriously ill is inappropriate," Okamoto explained.
    NIMD and the Taiji local council intend to continue the survey and extend its scope to both include children during the next stage of the survey and also plan to invite scientists from outside NIMD to participate in the study.
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