Minamata disease is a form of methyl mercury poisoning caused by eating large
quantities of fish and shellfish polluted by methyl mercury in factory wastewater. It
is not a contagious disease transmitted through air or food, and it is not inherited.
Minamata disease was officially discovered in 1956, and in 1968 the national government
announced that it was a pollution disease caused by the Chisso Co., Ltd.