An Appraisal on the Judgements of the Kumamoto Minamata Disease Certification Commission

Medical records of 3, 870 applicants living near the Shiranui sea coast who had been examined from August 1975 to April 1981 by the Committee on Certification of Minamata Disease were analyzed from the statistical point of view. The author analyzed the pattern of signs and reevaluated the applicants...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNippon Eiseigaku Zasshi (Japanese Journal of Hygiene) Vol. 51; no. 4; pp. 711 - 721
Main Author MIYAI, Masaya
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Japanese
Published Japan The Japanese Society for Hygiene 1997
Subjects
Adult
Aged
Certification
Certification - standards
Humans
Japan - epidemiology
Mercury Poisoning - diagnosis
Mercury Poisoning - epidemiology
Middle Aged
Minamata disease
Nervous symptoms
Japan
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Summary:Medical records of 3, 870 applicants living near the Shiranui sea coast who had been examined from August 1975 to April 1981 by the Committee on Certification of Minamata Disease were analyzed from the statistical point of view. The author analyzed the pattern of signs and reevaluated the applicants' records. Three hundred forty applicants (8.8%) were certified to have Minamata disease by the Committee on Certification of Minamata Disease. By application of the present criteria presented by the Japanese Environmental Agency in 1977 to the records, 947 inhabitants (27.9%) were judged likely to have Minamata disease. The author concluded that the certification of the patients of Minamata disease by the Committee was inconsistent with the results of applying the present criteria to the data and that the number of patients certified by the Committee to have Minamata disease was too low.
ISSN:0021-5082
1882-6482
DOI:10.1265/jjh.51.711