Kanemi Yusho Disease

Ladies and gentlemen,
I am a victim of Kanemi Yusho, a large-scale food poisoning occurred in 1968 in western Japan.
About 45 years ago with my family I ate the rice oil contaminated with PCBs and dioxins.

Until around 2000, most of the victims did not know that we had taken dioxins.
So we had been convinced that various strange symptoms and illnesses occurred in our body were caused by nature.

In 2000, some people from an NPO for the dioxin problem in Tokyo visited us and said that the main cause of Yusho symptoms are dioxins.
They also told me that many victims had divorced or had committed suicide.
Knowing what I had not been aware of, I began to study about Kanemi Yusho.

At first I wanted to know whether the strange symptoms and illnesses occurred in my body are related to Yusho.
Until then, only skin symptoms were emphasized as symptoms of Yusho.

Afterward I visited and met many victims, asking their symptoms and illnesses in detail.
Having heard from many victims, I understood that symptoms and illnesses came from Yusho.

When I was 6 years old, I ate the oil contaminated with PCBs and dioxins.
My mother bought the Kanemi rice oil by discount.
For a few months my family enjoyed my mother's home made meals cooked with the oil which contained the deadly poison.

Soon after, various health problems occurred in the whole family, all of them had been healthy before.
For example, small and large pimples were founded in our back and face.
Due to the huge eye mucus, we could not open our eyes when we awake.
Swelling of our faces was totally unusual.
Gums became flabby and bleeding whenever we brush our teeth.
Nails became darker and corrugated.

I felt heavy and could not walk up stairs without holding the handrail at school.
Especially every time after the meal, my stomach felt sick, so I had to lie down.

One and a half years later since we began to eat Kanemi oil, my mother got almost dying.
Her temperature kept 40 degrees for 40 days.
Any intravenous drip nor medicines worked for her.
Without knowing the true cause, she had to have an abdominal surgery at the risk of her life.

Putting a scalpel into her stomach, the doctor found that a large amount of pus in her liver.
After removing the pus, the doctor touched the liver, heard crunch sounds, and found a lot of stones like sands in her liver.
The doctor was surprised and said to my father that such facts had never been seen in any medical books.
Though my mother escaped death, she had to enter hospitals many times and spend hard days.
Even today the stones are painful for her.

My mother suffered not only physically but also spiritually.
Even now she regrets having fed poison to her family and sheds tears.

Moreover, she suffers from the fact that she used the Kanemi oil at the eating house she run.
Some regular customer lost his body hair at all.
Besides the hair on the head, eyelashes, eyebrows, nose hair, and hairs on any part of his body were lost.
He was immediately certified as a Yusho patient with his symptoms and my mother's testimony.
He has repeatedly lost and grown his hair at all in every five years since then.

In this year she confessed for the first time that not a few young regular customers have had died without being certified.
For long years she had been afraid that they died because of the the oil she used.
It is very hard to understand the agony that she had served meals with poison to many customers.

Among the victims of Yusho, many women gave up having children.

A victim in Fukuoka prefecture told me that her daughter's urine was colored like soy sauce.
I have often heard about blood in urine, I heard the soy sauce colored urine for the first time.

Later I met her daughter and asked about her damage.
She told me that her period stopped at her twenties.
Her uterus was removed and she got divorced.
As she was very beautiful and eagerly wanted to have a child, I imagine her deep sorrow.

Surprisingly many victims of Yusho have removed uterus or ovary.
On the other hand, victims who had a child faced other serious problems.

One victim certified three years ago had a baby without anus eight years after she ate the oil.
With full love she cared the baby put with a colostomy, the baby lived only for four months.
The baby's parents made it secret that they had a baby with no anus.
Recently after certified, they changed their mind and began to think that the baby was born with a very important message to our society.
Now they have the courage to talk to press about what happened to their baby.

I gave a call to a female victim who finally certified in March this year.
She told me about her brother, also certified this year.
I was very shocked hearing that her brother's child has missed 8 teeth.
Too many Yusho children have some lack of permanent teeth.
I know a girl who misses two teeth, and her sister misses one tooth.
But I heard for the first time about a child victim who missed 8 teeth.

She also cried for her grandson.
She said "A son of my second son has too small penis, but another son of him has too big penis as if always excited and never shrank.
My second daughter's child was born as a so-called black baby.
I think the symptoms of Yusho cannot be understood from outside, and Yusho patients are handicapped from inside."

The Yusho incident is a food poisoning caused by dioxins, and it is not at all a past case.
Due to the work and the interview conducted by victims and the Yusho Support Center, an NGO for the victims,
it becomes clear that the damage is carried over to the next generation.
Recently the victim's courageous appeal have made some media to pay more attention to Yusho.
However, since the damage over the next generation are very serious,
many victims keep silent about the truth in order to protect their children from the discrimination on marriage and employment.

One of my relatives who has health problem all over her body often says,
"I want to die. I am living only to suffer."
Her children often enter hospitals because of their profuse nosebleed, high fever and gynecological disease.
So they all are difficult to work.
But she did not tell her children that she is a victim of Kanemi Yusho, for she is afraid that they might give up marrying.
Whenever they asked her about the cause of their health problems, she answered "I do not know."

These are part of real state of the Yusho victims.
Many other victims live in many cities and town suffering from various symptoms and diseases.
A lot of facts cannot be found from only checking the data such as X-ray and blood test.
But unfortunately I do not know any dedicated doctors or researchers focused on Kanemi Yusho.

Ladies and gentlemen, please be sincere to notice the real state of the Yusho victims and know various symptoms and sufferings of the victims.
If possible, please come and listen to the victims.
I really hope that some of you will settle in our community for a year to find the deep truth.