eople who lived near the Jinzu basin farmed rice fields located downstream from the pollution. The cadmium entered the rice they ate, and then proved toxic to their bodies. The environmental pollution had been going on since about 1910 in the Jinzu River, and the long-term exposure led to symptoms of itai-itai disease in humans and mass death of the river’s fish. Cadmium is slow to leave the human body, and an exposure of many years like that experienced by the people in the Jinzu basin created high levels of cadmium buildup in their bodies. The first itai-itai diagnosis was made in the area of the river basin in 1912.