Most Saturday nights, a group of patients with the congenital form of Minamata mercury-poisoning disease dine together to discuss the challenges they face in coping with the ailment now that they are mostly in their 60s.The focus on a night in early September was Shinobu Sakamoto, who three weeks later was scheduled to speak at the Minamata Convention on Mercury held in Geneva, Switzerland. It was to be her second trip abroad to tell her story to the world, having also made a visit to Stockholm in 1972.Six patients and staff members at a welfare facility in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, ta…READ FULL ARTICLE
