Speaker 1: My love for my husband has become stronger since I
Speaker 1: fell ill with this disease. My mouth quivers so badly
Speaker 1: that I can't touch the food people bring me, so
Speaker 1: I give all my presents to Mohe he's been so helpful,
Speaker 1: you know, so kind. Did I tell you before that
Speaker 1: I am his second wife. We met through a matchmaker.
Speaker 1: I came here from Amakusa. Less than three years after
Speaker 1: we got married, I fell ill with this strange disease,
Speaker 1: such bad luck. I can't even address my kimono. Look
Speaker 1: how I shake. No matter how often I tell my
Speaker 1: body to stop shaking, it won't obey me. I can't
Speaker 1: control my own hands and legs. Whenever he comes here,
Speaker 1: my husband helps me address my kimono, muttering that I've
Speaker 1: become a helpless woman. Once he said I should wear
Speaker 1: underpants because my kimono kept falling in front. So he
Speaker 1: brought me long drawers and helped me into them. As
Speaker 1: he helped me into the pants, I said to him,
Speaker 1: I have really become a helpless creature, My dear, I
Speaker 1: want to get my own body back the way it
Speaker 1: was before. I want to go back to the strong,
Speaker 1: healthy body with which I came into the world. I've
Speaker 1: never been sick, I've never had to stay in bed.
Speaker 1: I was brimming with energy. I could work harder than
Speaker 1: any man. It used to be so lovely out on
Speaker 1: the sea. I want nothing else, just to be like
Speaker 1: I was before I got the strange disease, to be
Speaker 1: able to row a boat and to land a net again.
Speaker 1: I feel so miserable now, a helpless wretch with a
Speaker 1: body like a freak. I can't even wash my underwear
Speaker 1: when I have my period. If I don't work, my
Speaker 1: family won't be able to make ends meet. Minamata disease
Speaker 1: is hell. I feel like I was drifting away from
Speaker 1: this world. I have no grip. I cannot hold my
Speaker 1: husband's hand in mine. My arms shake so hard that
Speaker 1: I can't even draw my own dear son close to me.
Speaker 1: I might even bear this if I could go on
Speaker 1: living somehow. But I can't eat. I can't even bring
Speaker 1: the rice bowl to my mouth. I can't hold my
Speaker 1: chopsticks when I walk. It's not like putting one leg
Speaker 1: in front of the other on the ground, but like
Speaker 1: floating on air. I am afraid. I always get the
Speaker 1: feeling that someone is trying hard to pull me out
Speaker 1: of this world roots and all. I feel so lonely.
Speaker 1: You healthy people have no idea what it's like to
Speaker 1: lie in bed, sick and forgotten by all. My husband
Speaker 1: is the only person I can still rely on. He
Speaker 1: is my only hope. I love him so much that
Speaker 1: I'd give my life for him. God, I wish I
Speaker 1: could use my hands and legs again. I wish I
Speaker 1: could work again like I used to.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a tough episode for so
Speaker 2: many reasons.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 2: So that was excerpted from a book titled Paradise in
Speaker 2: the Sea of Sorrow by Issimode Michiko.
Speaker 1: And that was a description, of course, of someone suffering
Speaker 1: from minamata.
Speaker 2: Disease right, also known as methyl mercury poisoning. Hi, I'm erin.
Speaker 1: Welsh and I'm erin Alman Updike And.
Speaker 2: This is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1: So today we're talking about mercury.
Speaker 2: Mercury. Yeah, it's a very big and very challenging topic
Speaker 2: for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this listeners, we have been just talking amongst ourselves
Speaker 1: about how much of a challenge this episode has been
Speaker 1: for us. Yeah, the biology has been a real struggle
Speaker 1: trying to not only piece all of the complicated parts together,
Speaker 1: but be able to tell the story in a way
Speaker 1: that makes sense and is like easy for me to explain.
Speaker 2: And I think in both respects, both biology and history,
Speaker 2: the scope is enormous, enormous, and so I think figuring
Speaker 2: out what to concentrate on has been difficult. But also
Speaker 2: like as I did research for this, it was really
Speaker 2: emotionally difficult as well, like its is a very heart
Speaker 2: wrenching and horrifying like disease, while minamata disease specifically, but
Speaker 2: just like the kinds of things that mercury can can cause,
Speaker 2: not all the time, as we will find out, I'm sure, Aaron,
Speaker 2: But yeah, I do think though it'll be a very
Speaker 2: interesting one. This is our second heavy metal yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this will be a very different episode I
Speaker 1: think though than Lead. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Well yeah, but one thing will be
Speaker 2: the same, and that is.
Speaker 1: That it's quarantiny time.
Speaker 2: It is what are we drinking this week?
Speaker 1: We're drinking quicksilver.
Speaker 2: Quicksilver it's the other name common name for mercury.
Speaker 1: Do you know that I did not know that until
Speaker 1: we researched this episode. Really, I had no idea that
Speaker 1: that's what Quicksilver was escape brand to me and a
Speaker 1: surf brand.
Speaker 2: It was a banned from the seventies for me, I
Speaker 2: had I have had my parents old albums.
Speaker 1: Yeah I did not.
Speaker 2: That is hilarious.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyways, what's in a Quicksilver It is.
Speaker 2: Vodka, cucumber, lime and a little bit of basil simple
Speaker 2: syrup and a little splash of soda water at the end.
Speaker 1: So refreshing.
Speaker 2: And we will post the full recipe for this quarantini
Speaker 2: as well as the non alcoholic place Brita on our website.
Speaker 2: This podcast will kill You dot com other business.
Speaker 1: We have a website. It's this podcast will Kill You
Speaker 1: dot com yepy. We have so many things there, from
Speaker 1: merch to bookshop dot org to transcripts to all of
Speaker 1: the lists of our sources. We now have a Patreon.
Speaker 1: We have so much available there. Check it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do it? Okay, should we get started on this episode.
Speaker 1: We should right after this break. Mercury is an element
Speaker 1: HG also called hydrogorum something like that.
Speaker 2: There are too many like rs in that word. It's
Speaker 2: no wonder that it was changed to mercury to be.
Speaker 1: Honest, and like Aaron's had already also called quicksilver, so
Speaker 1: this is a heavy metal that is naturally found in
Speaker 1: the Earth's crust. However, the majority of this sort of
Speaker 1: bioavailable mercury that we are exposed to as humans has
Speaker 1: been put into the mercury cycle, which we'll talk a
Speaker 1: lot more about very much later in this episode, from
Speaker 1: anthropogenic sources, mostly the burning of coal, which releases mercury vapor,
Speaker 1: as well as gold mining, some various forms of gold mining,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other industrial products. Yep, so mercury.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that everyone is at least vaguely familiar with
Speaker 1: mercury because it is so fascinating to see because it's
Speaker 1: the only metallic element that is liquid at room temperature
Speaker 1: and looks like it's something out of a sci fi film.
Speaker 1: Absolutely totally doesn't look real. But this liquid form of mercury,
Speaker 1: as we'll find out, is certainly not the type of
Speaker 1: mercury that causes the most potential harm to humans or
Speaker 1: even other animals in wildlife.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1: Want to just disclaimer, even though we kind of did already,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to cover when it comes to this
Speaker 1: like nitty gritty of mercury. I hope that I do
Speaker 1: an adequate job. Let us try. So. Mercury comes in
Speaker 1: a number of different forms, and each of these different
Speaker 1: forms has a different level of potential toxicity to humans.
Speaker 1: The three overarching categories of mercury that you can be
Speaker 1: exposed to are elemental or metallic mercury that's quicksilver. Inorganic mercury,
Speaker 1: which is mercury that is bound to like a chloride
Speaker 1: or a nitrite. This is what used to be used
Speaker 1: not to step on your history toes erin, but as
Speaker 1: vermilion many many moons ago. It's like a rock that
Speaker 1: is a color that was used for pigment. That's inorganic mercury.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, I'm not going to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Oh good. And then there is organic mercury. Organic mercury
Speaker 1: is mercury bound to carbon and hydrogen. So these all
Speaker 1: differ in terms of both exposure like how we could
Speaker 1: expose to them, and also bioavailability how much they can
Speaker 1: sort of disperse throughout our body and then cause damage.
Speaker 1: So let's go over the like broad strokes differences between
Speaker 1: these and then we'll talk about how similar they actually
Speaker 1: are once they make it into your body. And then
Speaker 1: we'll go over the symptoms. Kind of organ by organ
Speaker 1: cool sounds good, all right. So elemental mercury aka just
Speaker 1: plane HG. That is the liquid metal, but the way
Speaker 1: that you're more likely to be exposed to it is
Speaker 1: not by that metal itself, but is by mercury vapor.
Speaker 1: So elemental mercury if you ingest it like you swallow it,
Speaker 1: it's really not absorbed very well through the GI tract.
Speaker 1: Something like point zero one percent is one estimate. I
Speaker 1: saw it. Definitely less than one percent is absorbed. Do
Speaker 1: not drink murcury though, But yeah, so elemental mercury vapors.
Speaker 1: It's vaporized very quickly and easily, even at room temperatures,
Speaker 1: but definitely when it's heated, and when it's inhaled, it's
Speaker 1: absorbed very rapidly across your respiratory membranes. Like eighty to
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of it is absorbed across your respiratory membranes,
Speaker 1: and from there it can very rapidly diffuse across other
Speaker 1: membranes in our body, including the blood, brain barrier, and
Speaker 1: the placenta. Additionally, mercury vapor has a relatively long half
Speaker 1: life in our body, about sixty days and so it
Speaker 1: hangs around for quite some time and can kind of
Speaker 1: build up, especially in organs like your brain. M hm. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's elemental mercury and how we get exposed. Then
Speaker 1: there's inorganic mercury, which I'm not going to talk a
Speaker 1: ton about because it's probably the one that you're least
Speaker 1: likely to be exposed to. But these can be absorbed
Speaker 1: through the skin or the GI track if ingested, but
Speaker 1: only about ten percent of ingested inorganic mercury is actually absorbed,
Speaker 1: so again, it doesn't actually absorb very easily.
Speaker 2: And the fact that it doesn't absorb very easily just
Speaker 2: has to do with like binding, Like what exactly.
Speaker 1: Listen, I asked for you to not ask me these
Speaker 1: difficult questions.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I couldn't resist.
Speaker 1: But yes, it's essentially that our intestinal membrane doesn't allow
Speaker 1: it to easily pass. And when we get into the
Speaker 1: next one, maybe that will make a little bit more sense.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it, okay, because then there is organic mercury.
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this.
Speaker 1: Organic mercury is formed when bacteria in the ocean or
Speaker 1: the soil or our waterways take inorganic mercury, like metallic
Speaker 1: mercury or inorganic mercury ions, And what they do is
Speaker 1: they methylated, which means they add a car carbon and
Speaker 1: some hydrogens. And when mercury is just floating around as
Speaker 1: an ion or as a metal, it's not very bioavailable.
Speaker 1: It's not like attractive for plants or animals, like they
Speaker 1: can't use it when it's just in that form. But
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, it's connected to a carbon atom.
Speaker 1: Now it's very bioavailable. So this methyl mercury can be
Speaker 1: used by plants, can be taken up by plants, and
Speaker 1: then those plants can be eaten by little fish that
Speaker 1: will hold onto that mercury, and then larger fish will
Speaker 1: eat those fish, and on and on up the food chain.
Speaker 1: And this process is called bioaccumulation, where that mercury stays
Speaker 1: within the system and by the time it makes its
Speaker 1: way up to predatory fish like tuna, sharks, swordfish, or
Speaker 1: other large bodied ocean predators especially, you can have very
Speaker 1: very high levels of this methyl mercury in their mustle.
Speaker 2: Right, which is why there are all those warnings about
Speaker 2: how much can tuna you're supposed to eat and so
Speaker 2: on the whole biomagnification exactly. Question.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a hard one.
Speaker 2: I maybe, okay, why slash? How do bacteria do this?
Speaker 1: Great question? Bacteria are phenomenal in general at making inorganic
Speaker 1: nutrients into organic nutrients and therefore available. That's what they
Speaker 1: do with nitrogen, that's what they do with phosphorus, that's
Speaker 1: what they do with all kinds of different ions. And
Speaker 1: that's the best answer I'm going to be able to
Speaker 1: give you. Oh, okay, okay, but yeah, it's like what
Speaker 1: they do. That's like their point, not their point, but
Speaker 1: that's like a huge part of the contribution of bacteria
Speaker 1: and fungi who do this in the soil as well
Speaker 1: to the sort of nutrient cycling in the environment. So
Speaker 1: that's how methyl mercury exists. And then of course we
Speaker 1: eat a fish and now we're exposed to it. So
Speaker 1: methyl mercury, this organic mercury is by far the largest
Speaker 1: contributor to our general exposure to mercury as humans, not
Speaker 1: only because we're exposed to it through the consumption of
Speaker 1: things like fish, shellfish, et cetera, but also because it
Speaker 1: is almost one hundred percent absorbed through the gi tract
Speaker 1: in addition to potentially being absorbed through the skin or
Speaker 1: inhalation if you were to be exposed that way. So
Speaker 1: it's of the forms of mercury, it's probably the most
Speaker 1: easily absorbed, especially through the GI tract, and once it's absorbed,
Speaker 1: it can very easily and readily distribute it itself throughout
Speaker 1: the body. It can cross the blood, brain barrier and placenta.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk a bit more about how it does
Speaker 1: that in just a minute. And even more concerningly than
Speaker 1: elemental mercury, the half life of methyl mercury in the
Speaker 1: body is longer, it's seventy days or sometimes longer, and
Speaker 1: the way that it's excreted is different. So it's excreted
Speaker 1: in our feces, it has to be conjugated in our
Speaker 1: liver and then we have to poop it out, whereas
Speaker 1: other forms of mercury, like inorganic and elemental mercury, we
Speaker 1: actually excrete in our urine. Huh, Yeah, isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2: That's very interesting.
Speaker 1: So that's all the different sort of forms of mercury
Speaker 1: and how we get exposed to them, and the difference
Speaker 1: is in how much of the mercury you're exposed to
Speaker 1: is going to actually make it into your body. I
Speaker 1: will also note there's a lot of other forms of
Speaker 1: organic mercury besides methyl mercury, some of which are even
Speaker 1: more toxic, like die ethyl or dye methyl mercury. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but in general, in fish, for example, by far, the
Speaker 1: most common one that you're going to be exposed to
Speaker 1: is methyl mercury. That's what is most common in the environment.
Speaker 1: The other forms, and to be produced in industrial settings
Speaker 1: rather than by bacteria in the environment.
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 1: All right, So now that we know all that, what
Speaker 1: does that actually look like when this mercury does get
Speaker 1: into our bodies? What happens and why does it make
Speaker 1: us so sick? So again, here there's a lot of complication,
Speaker 1: And what I'll say upfront is that if anyone remembers
Speaker 1: our lead episode, a lot of the mechanisms of how
Speaker 1: mercury causes toxicity are not very dissimilar to lead. But
Speaker 1: the difference was that in lead, there's like kind of
Speaker 1: one very compact story, like lead binds to a specific
Speaker 1: enzyme that then blocks heme synthesis and causes anemia. With mercury,
Speaker 1: because of what it does, it has a much broader effect,
Speaker 1: and therefore it's more difficult to pinpoint the precise mechanism.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense of toxicity, Yes, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna kind of look at the broad strokes and I
Speaker 1: think that we'll understand a lot of it. So in
Speaker 1: all of the various forms, once you're exposed to mercury,
Speaker 1: once it gets into our bodies, it generally exists as
Speaker 1: a positively charged ion, a cat ion. So either HG
Speaker 1: plus or HG two plus or even methyl mercury itself
Speaker 1: is a positively charged molecule. And because it's positively charged,
Speaker 1: like all positively charged ions, they have an affinity for
Speaker 1: negatively charged things in our body. That means proteins and
Speaker 1: some amino acids. Uh so yeah, oh is right, and
Speaker 1: so that's lead does the same thing. Lead exists as
Speaker 1: a positive ion and binds to certain proteins. In the
Speaker 1: case of mercury, though, mercury has a strong affinity for
Speaker 1: proteins and amino appaids that contain two different types of residues,
Speaker 1: sulfur groups which are called thiols and selenium groups, which
Speaker 1: are called selenols. So there's two big problems with this number.
Speaker 1: One there are some amino acids, like, for example, cystine,
Speaker 1: which is an amino acid with two sulfurs that when
Speaker 1: methylmercury binds to cystine, it looks like another amino acid,
Speaker 1: methionine that's a neutral amino acid and is not just
Speaker 1: able to cross barriers, but can be actively transported across
Speaker 1: barriers like the placenta and the blood brain barrier, okay,
Speaker 1: by amino acid transporters. So not only can this ion
Speaker 1: itself potentially cross these barriers once it connects with cysteine,
Speaker 1: it can be transported like oh hey, you look like methionine.
Speaker 1: Come on over, we're going to use you to build
Speaker 1: this fetus, or we're going to use you and like
Speaker 1: deposit you in the brain right now.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So that's yeah, that's bad. The other thing, so, because
Speaker 1: that kind of tells us that's how it gets into
Speaker 1: these structures, what does it do once it's there? Like,
Speaker 1: why is that so bad to have mercury instead of
Speaker 1: actually methionine By binding two not just cysteine, but a
Speaker 1: number a whole suite of proteins, amino acids, and enzymes.
Speaker 1: What mercury does is it causes a cascade of downstream effects.
Speaker 1: It basically blocks interrupts the actions of these various enzymes
Speaker 1: or proteins. And like I said, it's not just one,
Speaker 1: it's not just cysteine. There's a whole bunch of enzymes
Speaker 1: that have either sulfur or selenium groups on them. So
Speaker 1: one of the principal effects seems to be that an
Speaker 1: increase in mercury leads to a decrease in the antioxidant
Speaker 1: ability of our body. So a lot of the damage
Speaker 1: that occurs in mercury toxicity is due to reactive oxygen species.
Speaker 1: So basically, mercury is blocking enzymes that normally help fix
Speaker 1: oxidative damage, and it blocks their ability to do so
Speaker 1: it's like boop, you can't fix this. And so now
Speaker 1: there's just this free floating reactive oxygen that can cause
Speaker 1: a lot of damage. And when you combine that with
Speaker 1: its ability to cross these important membranes like the blood
Speaker 1: brain barrier and the placenta, you get oxidative damage in
Speaker 1: structures that can't easily be repaired.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I'm glad because it took me a long time to understand.
Speaker 2: The I mean, it's really complicated and like, these are
Speaker 2: things I haven't thought about, like oxidative stress, and I
Speaker 2: on is like that's nitty gritty, but that's very and
Speaker 2: so this is just this is just because the mercury ion,
Speaker 2: once it's in you, is attracted too. It's binding to
Speaker 2: these negatively charged things and sort of replacing their function
Speaker 2: or preventing them from from functioning the way they should.
Speaker 1: Okay, precisely exactly, yeah, exactly, and it can do that
Speaker 1: on so many different sort of proteins and enzymes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's very bad.
Speaker 2: And so this is why systemic.
Speaker 1: Systemic and why so many of the symptoms like we'll
Speaker 1: see are neurologic, right, because once it gets into the brain,
Speaker 1: it can kind of just stay there for quite some time,
Speaker 1: bound to these proteins and enzymes. So the symptoms in
Speaker 1: some ways do depend on the form of mercury that
Speaker 1: somebody is exposed to, but what they really depend on
Speaker 1: is where that mercury goes and potentially accumulates. And so
Speaker 1: that also depends on whether the exposure is a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of mercury all at once, like acute toxicity, or
Speaker 1: a smaller amount of mercury over a longer period of
Speaker 1: time or chronic toxicity. So I'll kind of go through
Speaker 1: very briefly system like, organ system by organ system, because
Speaker 1: since we're exposed to these different forms of mercury in
Speaker 1: different ways, they tend to have most effects on certain organs,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. But the truth is that any
Speaker 1: of these forms of mercury can potentially cause any of
Speaker 1: these types of symptoms, right, because once it's in your body,
Speaker 1: it all acts relatively similarly.
Speaker 2: Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: There are still some subtle differences, but all right, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about our lungs first. You're most likely to
Speaker 1: be exposed to mercury in your lungs through mercury vapor,
Speaker 1: which is mostly elemental mercury. This happens most often in
Speaker 1: industrial or occupational settings, and inhalation of mercury vapor, especially
Speaker 1: a large amount, like more than a thousand micrograms per
Speaker 1: cubic meter of air, can cause massive interstitial numinitis. So
Speaker 1: this means inflammation in the lining surrounding, like the spaces
Speaker 1: in between your cells of your lungs. Because this mercury,
Speaker 1: you can kind of think of it as just ripping
Speaker 1: through the lining of your lungs. So you'll have all
Speaker 1: this inflammation, which will lead to a pretty severe cough
Speaker 1: because of all this fluid, a lot of chest pain
Speaker 1: because that fluid is going to irritate the whole lining
Speaker 1: of your chest, difficulty breathing. This mercury does distribute throughout
Speaker 1: your body, so it's common to have a rash that
Speaker 1: appears on the skin. People often have a metallic taste
Speaker 1: in their mouth and might feel nauseous or might vomit.
Speaker 1: They might start bleeding from the gums, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty common symptom of a lot of different forms of
Speaker 1: mercury poisoning is sort of ginge ofvitis, and then elemental
Speaker 1: mercury is removed from the body mostly through the kidneys,
Speaker 1: so we can see kidney failure.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, but often if.
Speaker 1: With large enough exposures, this is fatal. This is a
Speaker 1: very fatal form of exposure, and the death tends to
Speaker 1: be due to respiratory failure, especially in the case of
Speaker 1: children who are exposed to large quantities of elemental mercury vapor.
Speaker 2: What is a large quantity.
Speaker 1: So in general, these like acute symptoms would happen at
Speaker 1: pretty high concentrations, like above a thousand micrograms per cubic meter.
Speaker 1: I tried to get a sense of like how many
Speaker 1: grams of like liquid mercury would cause to get that,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't get that number. I think in part
Speaker 1: because it depends on like are you heating it or
Speaker 1: is it just at room temperature and all of that.
Speaker 1: But even at chronic, like lower levels of exposure between
Speaker 1: twenty five to one hundred micrograms per cubic meter of air,
Speaker 1: even those levels have been shown to be enough to
Speaker 1: cause chronic symptoms, which tend to be more neurologic. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the neurologic symptoms in just a bit.
Speaker 2: It's hard to picture those amounts, but I know.
Speaker 1: It's so that for a lot of this, even in fish,
Speaker 1: it's like I have no idea how much mercury that is.
Speaker 1: One number that I saw really commonly was that. So
Speaker 1: in a mercury thermometer, there's anywhere from zero point five
Speaker 1: to three grams of mercury. So often average is used
Speaker 1: as one gram of mercury in a thermometer, and you'll
Speaker 1: see the stat that one gram of mercury can cause
Speaker 1: contamination of a twenty acre lake. That's a big lake,
Speaker 1: that's a big lake. It's not a huge lake, but
Speaker 1: it's a lake, and that stat is true, but with
Speaker 1: the caveat that that number comes from the annual deposition
Speaker 1: of mercury in a lake in Minnesota. I believe it
Speaker 1: was Minnesota, where about a gram of mercury was deposited
Speaker 1: over the course of a year, and those fish then
Speaker 1: had high levels of mercury, like unacceptably high levels. So
Speaker 1: it's true, but it's not like if you just took
Speaker 1: a thermometer and broke it and dumped it in a lake,
Speaker 1: then you would contaminate all those fish because it's a
Speaker 1: process that takes time, and if you just dumped a
Speaker 1: bunch of mercury, most of it wouldn't actually find its
Speaker 1: way into the fish, right, but over time, that amount
Speaker 1: of mercury would in fact work its way up the
Speaker 1: food chain. Does that make sense? Okay, that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So then let's move on to the GI tract. Inorganic
Speaker 1: mercury is probably one of the most maybe not the
Speaker 1: most common, but it's associated with pretty strong GI symptoms
Speaker 1: if you are exposed. But again, any form of mercury
Speaker 1: can cause symptoms like this, So GI symptoms are things
Speaker 1: like very severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhea. I
Speaker 1: did find that in the case of inorganic mercury, ingestion
Speaker 1: of one gram or more can be lethal, either due
Speaker 1: to kidney failure or cardiovascular collapse, because again, even though
Speaker 1: only about ten percent of it is absorbed, if that
Speaker 1: then makes it into your heart, it can cause damage
Speaker 1: there as well. Okay, the other thing too is that
Speaker 1: inorganic mercury is something that can be present in most
Speaker 1: places this is not legal, but it can be present
Speaker 1: in skin care or makeup products, especially skin lightening products,
Speaker 1: So that is very dangerous because inorganic mercury can be
Speaker 1: readily absorbed through the skin, much better than the GI tract.
Speaker 1: And then, of course there is the nervous system symptoms
Speaker 1: which we most strongly associate with methyl mercury poisoning or
Speaker 1: what we heard about in our first hand account minamata disease.
Speaker 1: But again, especially in terms of like long term chronic
Speaker 1: exposure to low levels of mercury, vapor or other forms
Speaker 1: of mercury can certainly cause these same neurologic effects, and
Speaker 1: just like with the other forms, exposure to a very
Speaker 1: large dose and acute poisoning is often fatal, but what's
Speaker 1: much more common is that people are exposed to low
Speaker 1: level or moderate level doses over longer periods of time,
Speaker 1: and then this methyl mercury is able to build up
Speaker 1: in the nervous system and cause these effects. So in
Speaker 1: adults or children who are exposed to methyl mercury, these
Speaker 1: symptoms can take months to manifest, and what tends to
Speaker 1: happen is that the peripheral nervous system is largely involved,
Speaker 1: but then the central nervous system, so like the brain,
Speaker 1: also then can become involved. So early it might be
Speaker 1: things like sensory impairments, not being able to feel things
Speaker 1: the way that you could before, or peristigias, which are
Speaker 1: those feelings of like a burning sensation or a tingling,
Speaker 1: maybe a numbness or like a pin prick sensation. Any
Speaker 1: of those tremors like we heard in our first hand
Speaker 1: account are very common, and those are all mostly peripheral
Speaker 1: nervous system effects. But then as it affects your central
Speaker 1: nervous system, you can have a taxia, which is difficulty
Speaker 1: walking because you can't coordinate your limbs. This numbness and weakness,
Speaker 1: you can have also rigidity in your muscles because the
Speaker 1: nerves are not firing correctly. You can have dysarthria, which
Speaker 1: is difficulty speaking because you can't coordinate the muscles of
Speaker 1: your mouth. You can also have things like memory loss, dementia,
Speaker 1: blurry vision or loss of vision, loss of hearing. So
Speaker 1: this can affect any part of the nervous system, and
Speaker 1: so especially in the case of large exposure or continued
Speaker 1: chronic exposure, this can lead to death in kind of
Speaker 1: any number of ways, from respiratory collapse because you've impaired
Speaker 1: the nerves that are involved in breathing, or in the
Speaker 1: brain like your respiratory drive. It can lead to cardiovascular collapse.
Speaker 1: Even though methylmercury is primarily not excreted by the kidneys,
Speaker 1: it still does have major effects on the kidneys, so
Speaker 1: it can lead to renal failure. It's a pretty devastating disease.
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, absolutely devastating, is yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then of course, methyl mercury also affects the
Speaker 1: developing nervous system of a fetus, and so it can
Speaker 1: cause abnormal development in a number of different ways. It
Speaker 1: can lead to congenital blindness or deafness. It can lead
Speaker 1: to an inadequately developed brain or an incompletely developed brain,
Speaker 1: so microcephaly. It can lead to difficulties with walking or speaking.
Speaker 1: It can lead to a syndrome that looks a lot
Speaker 1: like cerebral palsy, which is like exaggerated reflexes involuntary movements
Speaker 1: of the limbs. Limbs are often rigid things that look
Speaker 1: kind of very similar to what exposure to methyl mercury
Speaker 1: would look like in an adult. But that happen congenitally essentially,
Speaker 1: And that's, of course, if the baby survives, because large
Speaker 1: quantities of methyl mercury exposure can also cause fetal demise
Speaker 1: as well and pregnancy loss. So it's pretty horrific. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's all I have for the biology here, and it's
Speaker 1: the downer of an ending.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a reality though, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing that's I think just so so
Speaker 1: much worse. I don't know if that's even the right word.
Speaker 1: But there's not really anything we can do, especially in
Speaker 1: the case of methyl mercury poisoning. If exposure is from
Speaker 1: metallic mercury vapor, you can use key lators, which are
Speaker 1: essentially a way to help bind that mercury and help
Speaker 1: us excrete it faster, but key lators don't really work
Speaker 1: to treat inorganic or especially organic mercury poisoning, so there's
Speaker 1: not much that you can do. And especially in the
Speaker 1: case of this neurologic damage, it's permanent. You've destroyed those neurons.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, So Aerin, how in the heck
Speaker 1: did we get here to this point?
Speaker 2: I mean, I probably won't be able to answer that question,
Speaker 2: but I will at least touch on some I think
Speaker 2: pretty important things in the history of mercury. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: take a quick break first. So, like you, Aaron, I
Speaker 2: also got overwhelmed when I first started researching this because
Speaker 2: this is a huge topic, not just in the biology,
Speaker 2: but also in the history. And I say this for
Speaker 2: like so many episodes.
Speaker 1: I know, I would know we're so broken records.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, but I mean I will say that,
Speaker 2: like for mercury, there are many different ways that you
Speaker 2: can tell the story. There's so many different things you
Speaker 2: could focus on, Like you could focus on the role
Speaker 2: of mercury in mining, the impact that mercury has had
Speaker 2: on trade, mercury in chemistry, in alchemy, and religion, occult practices,
Speaker 2: and then there's, of course the role that mercury has
Speaker 2: played in the history of medicine, so like the development
Speaker 2: of the mercury thermometer and how crucial that was. Mercury
Speaker 2: used to treat syphilis and gonorrhea and other conditions.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that.
Speaker 2: We've talked about that, and mercury used in dentistry. I mean,
Speaker 2: it just like goes on and on. And then there's
Speaker 2: the darker side of mercury and its toxicity, especially in
Speaker 2: occupational exposure or industrial exposure. So miners experiencing symptoms due
Speaker 2: to chronic exposure, hatters exposed to mercury vapors, giving rise
Speaker 2: maybe to the Alice in Wonderland mad Hatter character. And
Speaker 2: then of course there's these many accidental and intentional cases
Speaker 2: of mercury poisoning through ingestion. And the story of mercury
Speaker 2: is not just super broad, it's all so quite deep, right,
Speaker 2: because humans have been working with mercury since the early
Speaker 2: days of civilization, using it for all of these things
Speaker 2: I've already mentioned. It got its name, after all, from
Speaker 2: the Roman god Mercury, who was the Greek god Hermes
Speaker 2: couldn't resist throwing a little bit of ancient Greek or
Speaker 2: ancient Roman trivia, and we've.
Speaker 1: Got to have at least a touch, at least a touch.
Speaker 2: But instead of trying to tackle the entirety of mercury
Speaker 2: and its role in human culture and society, I decided
Speaker 2: to focus specifically on one particular area, and that is
Speaker 2: minimata disease and the horrible circumstances surrounding it. And if
Speaker 2: you want to know more about these other areas of
Speaker 2: mercury that I mentioned, there is a book that I'll
Speaker 2: mention again in the sources section called Mercury, A History
Speaker 2: of Quicksilver by Leonard Goldwater, and it's full of anecdotes
Speaker 2: about its chemical and industrial and cultural history. Okay, but minimata.
Speaker 2: So I decided to focus on this incident in particular
Speaker 2: because it's a hugely important topic not only in the
Speaker 2: history of Japan, but also in the general history the
Speaker 2: global history of industrial contamination and putting the interest of
Speaker 2: corporations above the health and well being of individuals. And
Speaker 2: it's also still extremely relevant for today in its lessons
Speaker 2: on the human costs of industrialization and pollution, but also
Speaker 2: on the power of grassroots movements in raising awareness and
Speaker 2: achieving maybe not justice, but accountability at least in some measure.
Speaker 2: And I'm really worried that I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: this story the justice it deserves. But at the very least,
Speaker 2: what I hope will happen is that you will become
Speaker 2: interested enough that you'll want to check out more of
Speaker 2: these wonderful sources that I will list at the end
Speaker 2: of the episode, because they are really like, there's so
Speaker 2: much more to the story, and I really want people
Speaker 2: to read more about it, okay. Minamata is a small
Speaker 2: coastal city in the very southwestern tip of Japan, and today,
Speaker 2: if you do a Google image search of Minamata, you
Speaker 2: won't find many pictures of the beautiful Minamata Bay and
Speaker 2: the shimmering Sharon Nui Si and the lush green mountains
Speaker 2: surrounding the city. Instead, you'll find images from one of
Speaker 2: the worst environmental disasters the world has ever seen. And
Speaker 2: this is the legacy left behind by the Chiso Corporation,
Speaker 2: still in operation today. The company first setup shop in
Speaker 2: Minamata in nineteen oh eight, producing fertilizer, but then in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two it expanded its operations when it began
Speaker 2: to produce acid aldehyde, which importantly uses mercury sulfate as
Speaker 2: a catalyst. Over the next few Decadeschiso ramped up production
Speaker 2: of acidaldehyde, producing thousands or tens of thousands of tons
Speaker 2: each year, and all of these tons of acidaldehyde meant
Speaker 2: also the production of thousands of tons of waste, and
Speaker 2: that waste, which was not great to begin with, became
Speaker 2: incredibly deadlier when in nineteen fifty one, the Chiso Corporation
Speaker 2: changed the co catalyst in this reaction to ferric sulfide,
Speaker 2: which led to the production of mercury waste, which was
Speaker 2: much more readily transformed into methyl mercury when it was
Speaker 2: dumped into the sea next to Minamata, where there were
Speaker 2: lots of bacteria to take up that mercury and turn
Speaker 2: it into methyl mercury. And so, like you talked about aaron,
Speaker 2: methylmercury is an organic compound, so it can be readily
Speaker 2: absorbed by plants and animal and so all of this
Speaker 2: mercury waste that was being unloaded into the water wasn't
Speaker 2: sitting harmlessly on the seafloor. It was being immediately turned
Speaker 2: into methyl mercury and then taken up by plants, and
Speaker 2: then the plants were eaten by fish and then bigger fish,
Speaker 2: and it's the classic story of bioaccumulation. Right If you
Speaker 2: were living in Minamata in the nineteen forties, in the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, if you weren't working at Chiso, there was
Speaker 2: a pretty good chance that you either fished or farmed
Speaker 2: for a living. And no matter where you worked, there
Speaker 2: was an even better chance that locally caught fish and
Speaker 2: shellfish and seaweed constituted a pretty substantial portion of your diet.
Speaker 2: And so as this toxic mercury continued to be dumped
Speaker 2: into the sea outside Minamata and then be transformed into
Speaker 2: methyl mercury and accumulate in the plants and fish living
Speaker 2: in it, it of course found its way into the
Speaker 2: diet of the residence of Minamata. There Signs that anything
Speaker 2: was wrong came pretty early on, right around nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2: Some fish seemed to be just floating in the bay
Speaker 2: and could be easily caught by hand. Barnacles stopped appearing
Speaker 2: on boats near the factory dumping grounds, and seaweed began
Speaker 2: to float to the surface. Its color appeared to be fading,
Speaker 2: and its roots became more brittle birds, especially crows, began
Speaker 2: to fall from the sky, crashing into the sea or
Speaker 2: the ground dead, and you could snatch a seabird easily,
Speaker 2: just like with your bare hands. That's not good, no,
Speaker 2: And by nineteen fifty three things had gotten worse. More
Speaker 2: fish began acting strange, swimming in a bizarre way in
Speaker 2: the thick, greasy, stinking patches of water outside the factory
Speaker 2: that people compared to like turning the sea into a swamp.
Speaker 2: It was so thick. People were finding their nets emptier
Speaker 2: and emptier. Seaweed began to disappear, and you couldn't find
Speaker 2: shellfish anywhere close to the shore. But the most noticeable change,
Speaker 2: the thing that would really kind of sound the warning bells,
Speaker 2: was the cats of Minamata. People had started noticing that
Speaker 2: their cats had trouble moving. They seemed super uncoordinated. They
Speaker 2: would suffer convulsions, they salivated profusely, and they would bring
Speaker 2: their noses close to the ground, almost looking like they
Speaker 2: were trying to do a headstand by kicking their back
Speaker 2: legs up. They ran round and round, running into rocks
Speaker 2: or trees, with many just jumping into the sea and drowning.
Speaker 2: Soon there were nearly no more cats left in the area, like,
Speaker 2: for example, in nineteen fifty four, in one hamlet, one
Speaker 2: hundred of the one hundred and twenty cats died within
Speaker 2: two months. What Yeah, The loss of cats was devastating, obviously,
Speaker 2: not just because they were pets, but because cats also
Speaker 2: performed an invaluable service by killing mice and rats who
Speaker 2: would damage fishing nets by chewing through them. And so
Speaker 2: when all the cats started to die, the mice and
Speaker 2: rat populations exploded, making it impossible to keep a fishing
Speaker 2: net intact. But it didn't even matter because there were
Speaker 2: almost no fish to even fill these nets with. Between
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three and nineteen fifty five, fish catches went
Speaker 2: from four hundred and ninety thousand kilograms a year to
Speaker 2: about a third of that one hundred and eighty three
Speaker 2: kilograms a year.
Speaker 1: Whoa.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't just the fish and the birds and
Speaker 2: the seaweed and the cats that had started showing worrying changes.
Speaker 2: It was also the residence of minamata. Several people began
Speaker 2: developing problems walking or talking, or getting numbnus or in
Speaker 2: their fingertips or shaking in their limbs, Tunnel vision and
Speaker 2: they went to the hospital to receive a diagnosis of
Speaker 2: anything ranging from Japanese encephalitis to alcoholism, anything other than
Speaker 2: mercury poisoning before many of them died. But it took
Speaker 2: a few years of this before anyone recognized that what
Speaker 2: they had on their hands was not some Japanese encephalitis
Speaker 2: or whatever, it was an outbreak of an unknown, debilitating
Speaker 2: and often deadly disease. In nineteen fifty six, two young girls,
Speaker 2: sisters were brought to the hospital by their mother after
Speaker 2: they began showing trouble walking and talking, and the mother
Speaker 2: of the girls told the doctors that their neighbor, who
Speaker 2: was another young girl, had also been showing the same symptoms,
Speaker 2: and so the doctors went to investigate, and they found
Speaker 2: that they actually had at least eight people with these
Speaker 2: same symptoms with the same disease, which was an enough
Speaker 2: for them to declare to the Public Health office that quote,
Speaker 2: this is an epidemic of an unknown disease of the
Speaker 2: central nervous system. And not long after this declaration, more
Speaker 2: cases started appearing, with some families entirely affected. But there
Speaker 2: was such a stigma surrounding it that people stayed behind
Speaker 2: doors as their neighbors shunned them. For some people, the
Speaker 2: disease came on rapidly. A strong, healthy fisherman yesterday woke
Speaker 2: up today unable to stand on the boat and cast
Speaker 2: his net. Soon he would be in the hospital, suffering
Speaker 2: from convulsions and bloody fingertips as he rips off his
Speaker 2: nails by scratching at the walls. Horrifying and terrifying don't
Speaker 2: even begin to cover it, and you can imagine how
Speaker 2: neighbors and friends and family nervously watched for signs of
Speaker 2: the disease in themselves. Probably May first, nineteen fifty six
Speaker 2: marks the day when the mysterious disease affecting the residence
Speaker 2: of Minamata was officially discovered, But the doctors didn't yet
Speaker 2: know what the disease was or what was causing it,
Speaker 2: which meant that they could do nothing to prevent it.
Speaker 2: City authorities went to the homes of people who had
Speaker 2: come down with this disease, and they ordered them out,
Speaker 2: forcing some into isolation so that they could disinfect like
Speaker 2: spray the entire house, which only furthered the fear and
Speaker 2: stigma associated with it. After interviewing the patients, many of
Speaker 2: which were from fishing families. The people in charge of
Speaker 2: the investigation came to the conclusion that it was likely
Speaker 2: something from the seawater, but they weren't sure exactly what
Speaker 2: it was, although immediately several heavy metals were proposed, but
Speaker 2: these surveys tended to be super focused, which kind of
Speaker 2: led to this picture of Minimata disease as just one thing,
Speaker 2: like the most extreme case, and it overlooked the people
Speaker 2: who had less severe symptoms, which ultimately meant that they
Speaker 2: weren't recognizing the extent of the exposure, both in terms
Speaker 2: of like the number of people impacted and like the
Speaker 2: scope of disease symptoms, but also how widespread it could
Speaker 2: be geographically. But it's also not as though narrowing down
Speaker 2: the cause was like super duper easy. The Chiesau Corporation
Speaker 2: was dumping a lot of chemical waste into Minimata Bay,
Speaker 2: and so trying to figure out which of the possible
Speaker 2: I think at the beginning of the investigation there were
Speaker 2: like sixty four possible poisons proposed, and so figuring out
Speaker 2: which one of those was causing the symptoms wasn't necessarily
Speaker 2: this easy thing to do, and the factory certainly didn't
Speaker 2: help narrow down things. In one of the books I
Speaker 2: read for this, the author describes a four stage model
Speaker 2: for all pollution events. First, people become aware of the
Speaker 2: problem in Minamata. This happened in May nineteen fifty six. Second,
Speaker 2: they begin to search for the cause, which does take
Speaker 2: some time usually. Third, the polluter proposes or supports alternative
Speaker 2: theories to draw attention and responsibility away from themselves. Okay,
Speaker 2: and so then the public becomes confused as to who
Speaker 2: to believe. Fourth, all of these theories or hypotheses compete
Speaker 2: with and then neutralize each other, so that still no
Speaker 2: one knows what.
Speaker 1: To believe, oh gosh.
Speaker 2: And so whenever mercury was proposed, the Chiso Corporation was
Speaker 2: there to say, no, we actually think it's red tide,
Speaker 2: or no, we don't dump any mercury at all, it's impossible,
Speaker 2: or no, it's actually mercury from the agriculture whatever. And
Speaker 2: they also directly tried to prevent research linking the disease
Speaker 2: is to the waste that they dumped into the sea,
Speaker 2: like in one instance, they bought up all the fish
Speaker 2: in the markets so that a researcher from the NIH
Speaker 2: in the US couldn't take any back to conduct research.
Speaker 1: On Oh jeez.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in nineteen fifty eight they changed the dump
Speaker 2: site from Minamata Bay from the sea to the river
Speaker 2: to try to mislead the investigations that were going on
Speaker 2: at the sea dump site, which actually led to only
Speaker 2: more widespread exposure because people started showing up with Minamata
Speaker 2: disease like farther away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if anything, that's just going to like show more support.
Speaker 1: Like if you move your dump site, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: move where people get sick. Yeah, people are going to
Speaker 1: get sick in your new dump site. I mean, good
Speaker 1: forethought on that, right.
Speaker 2: But like if there were forethought, then maybe there would
Speaker 2: have been no methyl mercury poisoning in the first place.
Speaker 2: What a concept, Darin, What a concept. But one of
Speaker 2: the most egregious things they did was they hid the
Speaker 2: results of experiments that the Chiso Hospital doctor had done
Speaker 2: which conclusively showed that they were responsible for the waste.
Speaker 2: So he was feeding cats like different waste. And then
Speaker 2: there was this like infamous cat number four hundred who
Speaker 2: developed symptoms of minimaunta disease after being fed waste from
Speaker 2: the acid aldehyde process. But when he brought these results
Speaker 2: to the company, the company ordered the results to be
Speaker 2: destroyed or hidden and they stopped and they said, no
Speaker 2: more experiments. You will not have access to any more
Speaker 2: of this acid aldehyde waste.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But despite Chiso Corporation's best efforts, starting in nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: methyl mercury produced as a result of this acid aldehyde
Speaker 2: production was finally pinpointed as the cause. Mercury was found
Speaker 2: in the waste that they produced. It was found in
Speaker 2: the seafood in Minamata. That seafood was found to cause
Speaker 2: symptoms and cats and experiments, and it was found in
Speaker 2: the people suffering from the disease. The researchers who tested
Speaker 2: water or hair for mercury made measurement after measurement. They
Speaker 2: were like, there's no way that these numbers can be
Speaker 2: right because they're off the charts.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: The amount of mercury near the factory waste outlet was
Speaker 2: found to be two thousand over two thousand parts per million.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's two kilograms per ton, which is twice
Speaker 2: the amount needed for a mercury mine. That were you
Speaker 2: specifically mine for mercury.
Speaker 1: And so the thing is because of bioaccumulation. Even very
Speaker 1: low levels of mercury in the environment can lead to
Speaker 1: very high levels in fish. So having that high of
Speaker 1: levels in the environment is tearrifying.
Speaker 2: It is yep. Yeah, And there was so much mercury
Speaker 2: that they actually ended up establishing like a subsidiary to
Speaker 2: reclaim the mercury in the waist because it was valuable.
Speaker 2: Oh uh huh. Hundreds of people are found to have
Speaker 2: greater than fifty parts per million in their hair, which
Speaker 2: is the level at which like neurological symptoms can develop,
Speaker 2: and one woman was found to have nine hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty parts per million. Oh dear, yep. And you might think,
Speaker 2: or at least hope that given these solid links between
Speaker 2: acid aldehyde waste and minimata disease, there would be some
Speaker 2: sort of acknowledgment or attempt to write the wrongs by
Speaker 2: the Chisou Corporation. But also, if you're a listener of
Speaker 2: this podcast, you know that history is full of disappointing,
Speaker 2: to say the least, people and corporations, and this is
Speaker 2: one of them. It really just feels like these it's
Speaker 2: really hard to wrap your brain around because when I
Speaker 2: was doing this, I was reminded of well, many of
Speaker 2: the things that we've talked about, but I think in
Speaker 2: particular the litamide and the knowing, like the solid links
Speaker 2: the knowing, and then the refusal, denial, denial, like to
Speaker 2: what end?
Speaker 1: To what end? I just I do not comprehend.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't know how you can have a conscience,
Speaker 2: a soul and make these decisions.
Speaker 1: Ever again, yeah I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But the Chiesa Corporation took great issue with
Speaker 2: these findings and they continued to try to undermine them.
Speaker 2: They produced pamphlets to discredit the findings and the university
Speaker 2: researchers who had compiled them saying they were like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, they're not qualified for their jobs. And the
Speaker 2: sad thing is Chiso had a lot of the residents
Speaker 2: of Minamata on their side, along with the local and
Speaker 2: regional government. The factory had been seen by many as
Speaker 2: the town's economic savior, especially in like the years following
Speaker 2: World War Two during the economic recovery period, and about
Speaker 2: twenty five percent of the jobs in the town were
Speaker 2: somehow linked to Chiso or to Chiso in like their
Speaker 2: different subsidiaries. And in the face of these like links,
Speaker 2: between Minamata disease and the factory waste. The corporation kept
Speaker 2: making these subtle threats to like, oh, we're going to
Speaker 2: shut down and move somewhere else if people don't drop
Speaker 2: their complaints, Like this is proving to be very problematic
Speaker 2: for us. But it wasn't just the people affected by
Speaker 2: methyl mercury poisoning that had issues with Chiso. It was
Speaker 2: also the fishing co ops who had all but lost
Speaker 2: their source of income as fish populations declined something like
Speaker 2: ninety percent over the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and also the
Speaker 2: sale but not the catching of fish from Minamata was banned,
Speaker 2: so like you could still catch fish, but like to
Speaker 2: what end, because if they well, because what would happen
Speaker 2: is that if they banned the actual fishing itself, then
Speaker 2: Chiso would have to pay more because it would be
Speaker 2: have to show that they took the livelihoods anyway. And
Speaker 2: so these fishing co ops also demanded recognition and compensation
Speaker 2: from Chiso, but the public kind of turned against them
Speaker 2: after there were some riots or some like sit ins
Speaker 2: that turned violent, and this had the effect of also
Speaker 2: stigmatizing the people with this metal mercury poisoning who were
Speaker 2: either ignored or harassed for fighting chiso. Finally, though, at
Speaker 2: the end of nineteen fifty nine, the fishing cooperatives and
Speaker 2: the people with minamata disease one small vicaries as she so,
Speaker 2: finally made some payments. They did not, however, take responsibility
Speaker 2: for the poisoning. They just said, oh no, these payments
Speaker 2: are like a charitable gift from a caring neighbor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh gosh, and these gifts showed how much the company
Speaker 2: believed a life was worth.
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 2: They agreed to pay adults one hundred thousand yen, which
Speaker 2: was two hundred and seventy eight dollars per year, and
Speaker 2: children thirty thousand yen per year eighty three dollars and
Speaker 2: twenty thousand yen or fifty six dollars in funeral expenses,
Speaker 2: but they required a certification committee to decide who would
Speaker 2: be eligible for the money, and the company asked to
Speaker 2: include a clause where quote even if in the future
Speaker 2: it is determined that the cause of minimata disease is
Speaker 2: the factory's waste water, the patients will make absolutely no
Speaker 2: further demands for compensation money.
Speaker 1: What m hmm.
Speaker 2: Beyond the pale I mean, I don't. Yeah, And they
Speaker 2: also made small payments to these fishing co ops and
Speaker 2: they importantly they're like big you know, public image thing
Speaker 2: was they built this pollution control center which was supposed
Speaker 2: to remove the mercury from the waste that they produced.
Speaker 2: It did not like not at all. It was just
Speaker 2: for show.
Speaker 1: What Yeah, what's the point, Aaron.
Speaker 2: This was the cost of progress in their eyes. I think,
Speaker 2: I don't know at this point in time. So nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, the number of people with confirmed minimata disease
Speaker 2: was in the dozens, but the next ten years would
Speaker 2: show just how tiny the tip of the iceberg that was.
Speaker 2: After the so called sympathy payments in nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: I think that the Chiesa corporation thought, or at least hoped,
Speaker 2: that the people affected by the mercury poisoning would just
Speaker 2: shut up, take that tiny bit of money, and just go.
Speaker 2: But they didn't. This decade from nineteen fifty nine to
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight is sometimes called the decade of silence
Speaker 2: or the decade of isolation in the history of Minamata disease,
Speaker 2: but that's kind of a mischaracterization. If there was silence
Speaker 2: It wasn't from the people who were suffering from the disease.
Speaker 2: It was from the government or the Chiesa corporation, and
Speaker 2: also from many of the non affected citizens willfully ignoring
Speaker 2: this massive environmental disaster. But no matter how much they
Speaker 2: closed their eyes or plug their ears, the problem wouldn't
Speaker 2: just go away. Even though the payments had been made
Speaker 2: and the ridiculous waste cleanup program had been constructed and
Speaker 2: no one was eating fish anymore, the disease itself didn't
Speaker 2: go away. It appeared to be spreading, and part of
Speaker 2: this was when doctors began to recognize congenital cases of
Speaker 2: minimata disease in the early nineteen sixties. Since the early
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and into the nineteen sixties, rates of miscarriages,
Speaker 2: of stillbirths, diagnoses of cerebral palsy, and other congenital defects
Speaker 2: had soared through the roof. For example, the normal background
Speaker 2: rate of cerebral palsy was estimated to be about zero
Speaker 2: point two two point six percent, but in affected areas
Speaker 2: that had gone up to seven point four to six percent.
Speaker 2: What uh huh uh huh. Yeah. Doctors began to suspect
Speaker 2: that these children had been poisoned by mercury in utero
Speaker 2: and hair samples, breast milk samples, and umbilical cord samples
Speaker 2: all supported. Another fight then happened to get these congenital
Speaker 2: cases of Minamata disease to be recognized, and eventually they were,
Speaker 2: but again only for those tiny payments. But throughout the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, other things were happening on a national scale
Speaker 2: that would help turn the tide for the people with
Speaker 2: Minamata disease. So, like I said in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: especially once she'sa the corporation's role in the poisoning was
Speaker 2: made clear. The victims of the mercury poisoning didn't receive
Speaker 2: a whole lot of public sympathy. But in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: three other major pollution cases had come to light. Air
Speaker 2: pollution in Yokaichi City leading to a lot of asthma
Speaker 2: cadmium poisoning in Toyama Prefecture, and the second Minimata disease
Speaker 2: in Nigata Prefecture north of Tokyo. So it was like
Speaker 2: basically Minamata take two from another factory, also leading to
Speaker 2: metal mercury poisoning. These three, along with the brickery poisoning
Speaker 2: in Minamata are called the Big four pollution cases, and
Speaker 2: several lawsuits had already begun for the other three through
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties, which then gave hope to the
Speaker 2: people affected by Minimata disease that maybe they could finally
Speaker 2: get some small piece of justice. And in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: the government announced their official findings that the Chiso Corporation
Speaker 2: was responsible for producing the waste that led to widespread
Speaker 2: metal mercury poisoning in and around Minamata. And it was
Speaker 2: only in this same year, in nineteen sixty eight, twelve
Speaker 2: years after the disease was first recognized, that the Chiso
Speaker 2: Corporation finally stopped dumping mercury into the sea outside Minamata.
Speaker 2: They did it for twelve years.
Speaker 3: They continued to pay people right, but said, oh, we
Speaker 3: put this pollution cleaner upper and so, if and so,
Speaker 3: there could not possibly be a case after nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: once we built this thing.
Speaker 2: Aaron. Uh huh. As twelve years of knowingly poisoning human
Speaker 2: beings like that was the price of progress. I it's
Speaker 2: very hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: These sympathy payments were not seen as like accountability or responsibility.
Speaker 2: They were just damage control, like how much money do
Speaker 2: we need to throw at this? What's the least amount
Speaker 2: of money we can throw at this to make the
Speaker 2: problem go away?
Speaker 1: Right? That's I feel like what it always is.
Speaker 2: And the people impacted by the disease were not going
Speaker 2: to accept that anymore. With these other pollution events and
Speaker 2: the incredible grassroots work done by people such as Ishimurdre Michiko,
Speaker 2: who's the person who wrote the book Paradise in the
Speaker 2: Say of Sorrow, which is, by the way, one of
Speaker 2: the best books I've ever read. I think like it
Speaker 2: was absolutely her writings are so beautiful and so impactful,
Speaker 2: and it is I just want everyone to read it.
Speaker 2: It is unbelievable. And also the work of several photographers
Speaker 2: like Kuwabara, Sheisei, Shiota Takeshi, Miyamoto Shigemi, and also Eugene
Speaker 2: and Eileen Smith who helped to bring Minamata disease to
Speaker 2: wider attention and the struggle for recognition by the company
Speaker 2: as to what they did. And I also want to
Speaker 2: especially shout out to learn this in the research for
Speaker 2: this episode, that Eugene and Eileen Smith so who brought
Speaker 2: this international recognition to Minimata disease. There's actually a new
Speaker 2: movie called Minamata that came out in twenty twenty, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't find it streaming anywhere yet. About Eugene Smith,
Speaker 2: who was a photographer for Life who basically invented the
Speaker 2: editorial photo essay, and his an alien's book is titled
Speaker 2: Minamata is beautiful and incredible and it's like groundbreaking.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Anyway, all this is to say is that by the
Speaker 2: time that one hundred and twelve patients and family members
Speaker 2: had filed a suit against the company in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: they had a lot more public support than they previously had.
Speaker 2: And it took a few years, but eventually they did
Speaker 2: see success in court. It wasn't perfect, but it did
Speaker 2: force the Chiso Corporation to pay more, and it also
Speaker 2: held them responsible legally for the poisoning. It legally said
Speaker 2: that they had shown negligence in dumping between two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty four to six hundred tons of mercury estimated.
Speaker 1: That is not only massive amounts, but a massive range
Speaker 1: that is terrifying.
Speaker 2: Right, So two hundred and twenty four is definitely like
Speaker 2: those are not the Chiesa Corporation's estimations, by the way,
Speaker 2: but it is thought to be at at least two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty four. That's And so when you said
Speaker 2: that thing about the one drop of mercury from or
Speaker 2: like that little bit of mercury from a thermometer matter, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but there would still be a certification committee. And this
Speaker 2: committee excluded a lot of people who had less severe symptoms,
Speaker 2: like who didn't display the classic methal mercury poisoning symptoms.
Speaker 2: But still it was a big step forward. It gave
Speaker 2: the people who had minimata disease and their families some
Speaker 2: relief and a sense of dignity. It allowed them to
Speaker 2: not fight constantly to get the Chisee Corporation to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that what they did was wrong, but to actually then
Speaker 2: have the power to say, Okay, yes, what you did
Speaker 2: was wrong. Now what can we do? What can you
Speaker 2: do to make it at least a little bit better?
Speaker 2: You'll never make it right, but to make it a
Speaker 2: little bit better. And I'm going to wind down the
Speaker 2: history here, maybe rather abruptly, but I do want to
Speaker 2: be clear that the story of minimata disease is not over.
Speaker 2: The Minimata Bay was declared cleaned of mercury by I
Speaker 2: think nineteen ninety four, But today many of those with
Speaker 2: congenital Minimata disease are at an age where they need
Speaker 2: increasing amounts of support and care, and their parents, who
Speaker 2: have typically provided that care, are also aging and less
Speaker 2: physically able to do that. Many people are still unregistered.
Speaker 2: They haven't been able to get certified by these committees
Speaker 2: and so they don't have any payments from the Chiso
Speaker 2: Corporation to help them with their medical issues. And also
Speaker 2: many people are still unsatisfied with the inaction and lack
Speaker 2: of accountability from the government and have continued to fight
Speaker 2: for recognition. In total, two two hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: people have been officially certified, of whom one thousand, seven
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty four have died and ten thousand have
Speaker 2: received financial compensation from CHISO. More recently, it has been
Speaker 2: suggested that calling Minimata disease a disease rather than a
Speaker 2: criminal poisoning hides the truth. It doesn't place the responsibility
Speaker 2: at the feet necessarily at the Chiso Corporation. The history
Speaker 2: of this criminal mercury poisoning by the chase of corporation
Speaker 2: in and around Minamata has led to the creation of
Speaker 2: an entire field of study. It has inspired plays, poems,
Speaker 2: and songs. It was impactful in the democratization of Japan.
Speaker 2: It helped turn the tide for corporate accountability, and it
Speaker 2: revealed this power of grassroots movements. And we cannot afford
Speaker 2: to ignore or forget what happened in Minamata because it's
Speaker 2: going to keep happening. Maybe it won't be methyl mercury poisoning,
Speaker 2: although it probably will also be that, and there definitely
Speaker 2: have been instances of mercury pollution since Minamata, but there's
Speaker 2: also a good chance it could be something similar, Like
Speaker 2: what about climate change and the large scale destruction of
Speaker 2: our planet? What is the true cost of progress? There's
Speaker 2: a great quote from the book Minamata by Eugene and
Speaker 2: Eileen Smith. The morality that pollution is criminal only after
Speaker 2: legal conviction is the morality that causes pollution. This is
Speaker 2: as relevant today as when it was first published back
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy five. Like it's I can't emphasize enough
Speaker 2: how so many corporations just are not being held accountable
Speaker 2: for what they're doing. To the planet, and so I
Speaker 2: really really encourage everyone to learn more about this, about Minamata.
Speaker 2: Read Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow by Isshi Murde Michiko,
Speaker 2: or Minamata by Timothy George, or the photo essay book
Speaker 2: by Eugene and Eileen Smith, or watch the documentary Minimata
Speaker 2: the Victims in Their World, because there is so so
Speaker 2: much more to the story than what I've gone through here.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I think Aaron that I'm ready for you
Speaker 2: to tell me what's going on with mercury and mercury
Speaker 2: poisoning today.
Speaker 1: I would love to after the break. So I try
Speaker 1: always in these sections to talk about numbers, right, like
Speaker 1: in this case, it would be do people still get
Speaker 1: mercury poisoning? How many? I couldn't find numbers on this
Speaker 1: errand I mean the only number I could find I
Speaker 1: found a couple. We'll still talk numbers. Don't worry. The
Speaker 1: World Health Organization estimates that in subsistence fishing communities between
Speaker 1: one and a half to seventeen, which is a huge
Speaker 1: range of every one thousand children have some kind of
Speaker 1: cognitive impact because of the consumption of mercury contaminated fish.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that number is from the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization like Mercury fact Sheet website. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly where that number came from, but that's the number
Speaker 1: that they cite. If we look at the potential for
Speaker 1: occupational exposure, which we know is great in certain industries,
Speaker 1: especially in artisanal and small scale gold mining. I found
Speaker 1: a paper from Environmental Health Perspectives from twenty fourteen that
Speaker 1: was a review on the health effects of mercury in
Speaker 1: in these artisanal and small scale gold mining communities. They
Speaker 1: cited that globally, fifteen million people participate in this type
Speaker 1: of gold mining across seventy different countries, which is a
Speaker 1: way bigger industry than I realized. And they didn't have
Speaker 1: numbers like what percentage of people have signs of mercury
Speaker 1: poisoning or anything like that, but they did say that
Speaker 1: in this paper was kind of a review of papers
Speaker 1: that have looked into it, and mercury exposure at very
Speaker 1: high levels is found and causing potential health problems. So
Speaker 1: it's still not numbers, but at least you get a
Speaker 1: sense of the potential scale. But the thing is that
Speaker 1: it's not just occupational exposure right, And it's not just
Speaker 1: subsistence farming communities. Everyone is exposed to mercury. If you've
Speaker 1: ever eaten a fish or a shellfish, if you've ever
Speaker 1: eaten grain, you've probably been exposed. It's everywhere. So what
Speaker 1: I want to focus on instead is how much mercury
Speaker 1: are we talking about in the environment and where is
Speaker 1: this mercury coming from. So I mentioned at the very
Speaker 1: very top, like three hours ago in this episode that
Speaker 1: mercury is found naturally in the Earth's crust, and there
Speaker 1: is a natural mercury cycle where mercury is released from
Speaker 1: things like geothermal vents, from volcanic activity, from biomass that's
Speaker 1: burned during fires. This happens normally, and then this mercury
Speaker 1: is released into the atmosphere. It's deposited in the soils
Speaker 1: or the oceans or the waterways, where it of course
Speaker 1: can become methylated and it can become part of the
Speaker 1: biomass or become part of the soil deposits and eventual
Speaker 1: fossil fuels, et cetera. Right, that's a natural cycle, like
Speaker 1: the water cycle, the carbon dioxide cycle cycles. But just
Speaker 1: like the carbon dioxide cycle, the amounts of mercury currently
Speaker 1: in our atmosphere and being released into our atmosphere to
Speaker 1: become a part of this active cycle rather than trapped
Speaker 1: beneath the Earth's crust, are vastly higher than they have
Speaker 1: been ever because of humans. Unsurprisingly, the sources of increased
Speaker 1: mercury concentrations in the atmosphere are anthropogenic. So let's put
Speaker 1: some numbers on it. If you check out the EPA website,
Speaker 1: which reports data from the US and all of the
Speaker 1: industries that report mercury emissions and all other emissions to
Speaker 1: the US, the EPA has reported a seventy three percent
Speaker 1: decrease in airborne emissions of mercury from two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven to twenty nineteen, which, if you look at that
Speaker 1: on a national level, you're like, that's awesome, that's a
Speaker 1: huge decrease. But the thing about something like mercury or
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide is that we can't look at things like
Speaker 1: environmental pollution on a country or a national level. This
Speaker 1: is a global phenomenon with global consequences because mercury released
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere can travel thousands of miles before being
Speaker 1: deposited via rainfall into our soils and waters, where it
Speaker 1: can continue to travel throughout the water cycle across the globe,
Speaker 1: be methylated by bacteria uptaken by plants enter our food chain.
Speaker 1: Those fish can then travel across the globe, and then
Speaker 1: once a fish is caught for consumption, it can be
Speaker 1: shipped anywhere around the world.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So this is a global issue. So how are we
Speaker 1: doing globally? A UN report from twenty eighteen estimated about
Speaker 1: twenty two hundred tons that's two two hundred tons of
Speaker 1: global emissions of mercury in twenty fifteen. This is an
Speaker 1: increase of twenty percent from twenty ten.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, when we look at what the contributors are, coal
Speaker 1: burning and other fossil fuel burning accounts for about twenty
Speaker 1: four percent of all of the total global emissions. The
Speaker 1: largest overall percentage, thirty seven point seven percent, is contributed
Speaker 1: by artisanal and small scale gold mining. So this presents
Speaker 1: issues not only for the people who are being exposed
Speaker 1: to this mercury vapor during that small scale gold mining,
Speaker 1: but also on a large scale as well. And overall,
Speaker 1: human activities have increased the total atmospheric mercury concentrations by
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty percent from pre industrial levels.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to wrap your brain around.
Speaker 1: Really is because just like with climate change and carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: the amount of mercury that we've already put into the environment,
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, the soils, the waters, it hasn't made it
Speaker 1: all into the food chain yet, so decreasing our emissions
Speaker 1: now will still take years to actually show like a
Speaker 1: beneficial effect or a decrease in total mercury. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot. It's such a bigger issue than
Speaker 1: I realized. Erin, I had no idea that there was
Speaker 1: so much mercury being released by things. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't either, And I like, you could
Speaker 2: do an entire podcast, multiple seasons on mercury, ye for sure.
Speaker 1: Speaking of too much to cover a whole topic I
Speaker 1: didn't even get into, which I'll just very briefly mention
Speaker 1: is something we actually touched on what feels like a
Speaker 1: million years ago in our Vaccines episode in season two,
Speaker 1: and that's thymerisol. So thy ma is a mercury compound
Speaker 1: that is an additive that's been used in various multidose
Speaker 1: vaccine viols as a preservative. Mercury has been used as
Speaker 1: so many things antiseptic, antimicrobial, and so thimerisol is used
Speaker 1: as a preservative to prevent contamination when somebody has to
Speaker 1: introduce multiple needles into viols multiple times to draw up
Speaker 1: vaccine doses. So thymerisol is ethyl mercury, or at least
Speaker 1: it's broken down into ethyl mercury in our bodies, so
Speaker 1: it's an organic mercury compound, but it is not methyl mercury,
Speaker 1: which is what we find in fish. For example, methyl
Speaker 1: mercury is one carbon atom and three hydrogens bound to mercury.
Speaker 1: Ethyl mercury is two carbon atoms five hydrogens. So back
Speaker 1: in like nineteen ninety nine, the American Account of Pediatrics
Speaker 1: recommended in the US reducing or eliminating the use of
Speaker 1: thymerisol in vaccines in kids because of data about the
Speaker 1: accumulation of methyl mercury in tissues and they thought that
Speaker 1: for some kids of certain sizes, the dosages would exceed
Speaker 1: methyl mercury like recommended safe dosages. So in the US,
Speaker 1: the UK, the EU, in a lot of places, thymerisol
Speaker 1: isn't really used in childhood vaccines at all. It's been
Speaker 1: eliminated since about two thousand and four, but it is
Speaker 1: still an important preservative in vaccines and other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. It's still used in some vaccines in the US.
Speaker 1: But this data, importantly was not from ethyl mercury. It
Speaker 1: was from methyl mercury. And it turns out that ethyl mercury,
Speaker 1: once we studied it, is eliminated from the body a
Speaker 1: lot more readily than methyl mercury is, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: actually accumulate late the same way. And so since then,
Speaker 1: because of all this controversy surrounding thymerisol, there have been
Speaker 1: a lot of large scale epidymiological studies, none of which
Speaker 1: have shown major or long term neurodevelopmental effects of thymraisol
Speaker 1: in vaccines. There's a lot more to that story, but
Speaker 1: that's all. I wanted to just mention that it exists,
Speaker 1: and it's a different form of mercury than what we
Speaker 1: find in fish, and that than what causes minimata disease,
Speaker 1: for example.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So that's mercury, or at least some small slices of it.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, we covered I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like we covered a lot of ground, but there's still
Speaker 2: a lot out there.
Speaker 1: There's a we we broke the thermometer and just spilled
Speaker 1: a few drops out and there's a lot left in there.
Speaker 2: There we go, Okay, anyways, clean that, Clean that up though,
Speaker 2: clean it up and.
Speaker 1: Don't vacuum it.
Speaker 2: Sources sources I pretty much have already mentioned mine, but
Speaker 2: I will briefly just go through again the titles, so
Speaker 2: Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow, Minamata, Pollution and the
Speaker 2: Struggle for Democracy and post war Japan, Toxic Archipelago, A
Speaker 2: History of Industrial Disease in Japan, and then Minimata and
Speaker 2: then again that Mercury History of Quicksilver book.
Speaker 1: I had a number of different sources, a lot of
Speaker 1: which go into way more detail than I did on
Speaker 1: the specific mechanisms of the toxicity of mercury. So if
Speaker 1: you'd like to read a lot more, we'll list all
Speaker 1: of our sources on our website, this podcast with kill
Speaker 1: you dot Com under the episodes tap we Sure Will.
Speaker 2: I wanted to give a huge thank you and shout
Speaker 2: out to Emily who helped me with these sources for
Speaker 2: Minamata Disease. They were like so helpful, so I appreciate
Speaker 2: it so much. It was so great to email back
Speaker 2: in Worth with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you also to Bloodmobile for providing the music for
Speaker 1: this episode and all of our episodes.
Speaker 2: And thank you to the Exactly Right Network, of whom
Speaker 2: we are a proud member.
Speaker 1: And thank you to you listeners. We hope that you
Speaker 1: found this very long episode enjoyable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also a shout out to our patrons. Yeah,
Speaker 2: really really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: We love amazing so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, Well, until next time, wash your hands you
Speaker 2: feel the animals