The article says that a “total of 2,282 people in Kumamoto and the neighboring prefecture of Kagoshima have been officially recognized as sufferers of the disease.” The number of certified patients, however, is far lower than the number of people affected. That number is more difficult to calculate (the definition of “affected” can be debated) but one interesting indication of the scale of the disaster is that, between May of 2010 and July 31 of 2012 over 45,000 people (45,933 to be exact) applied for compensation for health effects they had suffered:
http://www.minamata195651.jp/pdf/kyoukun_2015/kyoukun2015_07.pdf
The huge discrepancy between the official certification numbers and the numbers of people who have applied for some kind of compensation is indicative of governmental and corporate collusion in the artificially suppression of the numbers of people who could become certified. (There is ample historical documentation of this collusion, by the way.) Given this history, I think it is irresponsible of journalists to merely report the number of officially certified patients without reminding readers that those people are arguably less than 10% of the actual total number of people who have been adversely affected.
– Kirk
