Questions and Answers from Earlier Classes on Chemical Hazards
Q. In the Minimata case, did Chisso Corporation ever pay the $100 million settlement suit?
A. I don't know. It is an interesting moral issue. Today, we regard almost any pollution as a crime or at least anti-social corporate behavior. That was not the case in the US until sometime in the 1960's. Engineers were taught, "The solution to pollution is dilution." Almost everyone accepted that some contamination was inevitable and required for economic progress. The situation in Japan was worse, with most industries and infrastructure damaged or destroyed by World War II. Now what happed (as I remember some readings I have never researched this is depth) Chisso and the government knew that they were polluting and the pollution was not against any Japanese law. When it became apparent that there might have been health effects, the government told the locals to stop fishing in the Bay and stop eating the fish from the bay. Chisso in turn paid the fishermen to not fish in the bay. The fishers may have not stopped fishing, the fish outside the bay may have had some contamination, and certainly some of the effects may have been due to exposure before the restrictions. The same is true of Love Canal in New York. Everything Hooker Chemical Co. did was legal when they did it. In addition, when the site was sold there was a deed restriction that should have prevented housing and certainly the school being built on the dump. That is one of the reasons that the RCRA law was passed.
Q. For Minamata Disaster, It is not only Chisso corporation but Japanese
government should also be equally blamed, as it remained quite while Chisso
Corporation was polluting. Court ordered Chisso Corporation to compensate but
how was Japanese government punished? If similar cases happen in any country,
how should the government be punished?
A. But who would punish the government? We have to be careful, judging Japan by year 2000 standards. In the early 1950's Japan was still crawling out of the debris of World War II.
Q. The report states, that the poisoning of Dr. Wetterhahn was caused "from a few drops of a potent neurotoxin she spilled on her lab glove." A few drops might be a very small quantity for an engineer, but maybe not for a scientist who is working with substances on a molecular level.
A. Yes, I see your point. For a scientist pipetteing out nanograms, it may be a large quantity. But for laboratory safety, it is a very small amount. Presumably workers are exposed to much larger quantities of solvents and such, and for those the gloves are specified.