What we can still learn from the ongoing Morinaga arsenic milk poisoning case／Hisaya Okazaki

Hisaya Okazaki, Director, Morinaga Arsenic Milk Incident Archives

September 1st, 2018

Introduction

I manage a permanent exhibition concerning the Morinaga arsenic milk poisoning case, but this is not my main business. My profession is that of a management consultant, and I advise companies on their business management. However, I am particularly concerned with safety management at manufacturing sites, as it relates to the Morinaga incident.

　It is very difficult to talk about the Morinaga incident in an hour and a half. This is because my sister was a victim of the incident. Therefore, I am inevitably emotional and it is difficult to tell a coherent story.

Another reason is that this case is very changeable. I will do my best to talk about the incident since it occurred in 1955, although it will be a very superficial, because of the 63 year history.

１． Overview of the Morinaga arsenic poisoning case

The can which contained milk with arsenic was much smaller than the ones currently sold. Some children died after drinking two cans, while others, like my sister, survived after drinking 22 cans. I shall explain that a little later.

​Next, I’ll give you a brief outline of the damage. In 1955, incidents of arsenic poisoning occurred all over Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Because milk is a staple food most of the victims were infants. However adults, including pregnant women, joined the victims. At that time, nutritional supplements did not exist in Japan, and undernourished people drank this instead of a nutritional drink. As a result, some people were poisoned.

​131 infants died within 1 year, and it is said that more than 1200 people have died as of 2017. The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has not released information regarding the exact numbers.

２． The world's first infant arsenic poisoning

​As of 2018, there are 12,156 certified victims, but it is believed that the actual number is probably much higher. This is the biggest case of food poisoning in the world, and the fact that infants were given arsenic was unprecedented. Although there had been accidental ingestion before that, this was a unique case of systematic poisoning through drinking.

​The symptoms of infants who ingested the arsenic were shocking. The skin on their entire bodies turned black and, as a result of their internal organs swelling, their stomachs were bloated like a mountain. Other patients suffered from a high fever of nearly 40 degrees Celsius, vomiting and diarrhea. In addition, it caused all kinds of chronic symptoms, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, quadriplegia, mental illness, and epilepsy.

​News videos at the time showed that treatment was exhaustive, but in reality, no treatment was given for the long-term side effects. The treatment for acute symptoms was a simple injection of antidote. As a result, it was difficult to say that relief efforts were exhaustive. This is the major problem of this incident.

３．My sister was a victim of arsenic poisoning

​My sister, Yuriko Okazaki, also became poisoned by drinking Morinaga milk.

My father, Tetsuo Okazaki, was a soldier in the Kwantung Army during the war and fought in an all-out war against the Soviet Army, and was one of the 2% who survived. From there, he was interned in Siberia, survived there as well, and returned to Okayama. A few years later, he married and had a daughter. She was my older sister, who I mentioned earlier.

Her stomach was swollen, so she was given a large dose of Bal, a detoxification injection for soldiers, and survived. However, because it took a long time to get the information regarding this antidote, people living in the suburbs did not have the chance to receive this kind of treatment. They were becoming more severely ill and, to this day, still have serious symptoms.

After that, my sister recovered. I think my mother, Sachiko Okazaki, felt a heavy sense of responsibility. She took my sister to the Asahi River every day for special swimming lessons. My mother tried hard to improve my sister's health, but her attitude was based on a strong feeling of anxiety about what kind of aftereffects it might have on her daughter. After that, my sister was able to study and enrolled in the department of education at Okayama University, where she majored in education for children with disabilities, probably because she wanted to help people with disabilities, and she graduated at the top of her class. Then, my sister became a teacher to fulfill her wish.

However, soon after she became a teacher, she was diagnosed with thymoma. At that time, there were not many cases of this cancer. She had her thymus gland completely removed, and survived.

She worked hard to educate children with disabilities and to treat children's speech disorders. She also worked as a regular classroom teacher for more than 10 years.

When she turned 40, her cancer suddenly returned. At that time, it had already metastasized to her lungs. She continued to teach until she was on the verge of collapse with metastatic cancer. However, about five years before she passed away, she requested a leave of absence and lived a bedridden life at home. This is a photograph of her during her illness. It was taken about 10 days before she passed away. She was held to my mother's chest, but she was no longer able to breathe. Her blood oxygen level was below 20%. The doctor said she would have died instantly in that state. The amount of oxygen in the blood is normally 96% or higher, and at least 90% is required for survival. The doctor assumed her body must have adjusted to the situation over the previous five years, but she looked as if she was in great pain. She was so skinny that other people didn’t even recognize her. I always wondered if it’s appropriate to show this picture to everyone. However, I believe that if I don't show it to you, you won't understand.

In her final days, she was in a hospice for terminal care and was given injections of painkillers. One day, my sister asked me to think about her funeral plans. So I did some research on Christianity and Buddhism. When I told her about it, she got angry. Why would I have looked into something like that and reported it to her?

I know that she really didn't want to die. I still remember her painful struggle with the disease.

4． Never-ending damage

Although 63 years have passed since the Morinaga Incident, victims are still suffering from many symptoms, especially in Okayama and Hiroshima. More than 2,000 victims have been affected. Hence, Okayama has become a center for relief, the number of the affected being the largest. My father started going around hospitals and forming victims' groups a few days after the case was revealed. I assume many people think that there must have been some relief, since the problem was so gruesome, but in reality there was not. I fear that the human rights of the victims have not been and will not be respected.

This Morinaga arsenic milk poisoning case has been ongoing for 63 years, and its journey has been full of twists and turns. Let me share a rough overview. Starting the following year, Morinaga and the central government began dividing the victim's parents' groups. The case was then buried for 14 years and they pretended it had never happened. However, the fight was maintained by a small number of parents. Another fierce nationwide battle started around 1969, and by 1986 a settlement had been reached. However, a further split began amidst this struggle, and now Morinaga is openly falsifying history. I would like to talk about this now.

First, the incident was announced by the Okayama Prefectural Government on August 24th, but two weeks prior, on August 8th, the local Sanyo Shimbun newspaper first broke the story. However, there were two pieces of false information. First was the headline, "Baby formula causes rare disease," which should have been said, "Morinaga formula causes rare disease.” The reporter originally wrote "Morinaga," but an associated editor rewrote it. The second was a quote from Professor Eiji Hamamoto of the Department of Pediatrics, Okayama University, who claimed the cause of the disease was unknown, so an investigation was required. That was a lie. The cause was known at that point.

Denying arsenic was the main cause was a complete fabrication. In fact, there were symptoms like the ones I just described, or slightly more moderate, but similar symptoms had been reported all over the country from two months prior. But at that time, information on individual cases was not shared among patients. One doctor in Nara, who diagnosed these symptoms, independently returned the formula cans to the Morinaga Milk Industry and warned the company that something is wrong with their product. Morinaga responded and buried each of those complaints, claiming they interfered with business. In the meantime, around August, the actual damage to infants became clear. However, I do not think that Professor Eiji Hamamoto knew that much yet.

Since the case had gotten so complicated, Morinaga was ordered by the government to submit the product. The company manufactured milk without arsenic in order to comply. This shows Morinaga had been engaged in deceitful acts since immediately after the incident occurred. The incident occurred on a nationwide scale because Morinaga's market share was the second largest (after Snow Brand). In order to become No. 1, Morinaga conducted competitive sales activities, and in particular, developed the “Okayama Method,” which helped them to capture the entire market of Okayama Prefecture.

First, they generously donated a handsome amount of money to the pediatrics department of Okayama University as a research fund, to captivate the head of pediatrics. They also brought the Okayama Prefectural Health Department to their side, which was in charge of public health centers and public health nurses. When mothers consulted with them about child rearing, they were told to switch from Snow Brand to Monrinaga. The Sanyo Shimbun frequently carried advertisements for Morinaga.

This method succeeded with flying colors. In fact, starting a year before the incident, Morinaga gained a 70% market share, over the 20% market share they controlled two years earlier. This is unthinkable with ordinary sales activities. It was more like a "business order" than a "sales activity," because they mobilized the entire government to replace their formula with Morinaga brand. They were pleased with this success and felt positive that they could be the No.1 company in Japan. They next approached NHK, which began a nationwide advertising campaign the following year. It was NHK that created a great opportunity for the product to spread nationwide. Their aim was to get rid of breastfeeding. I know it doesn't make any sense to young people of today, but they claimed breastfeeding was not healthy for infants.

That was what the "National Baby Contest” was actually all about. You may be surprised to learn the reality of the "National Baby Contest". We assumed that it was ostensibly intended to increase the Japanese population, which was amid recovery after losing the war. The Ministry of Health and Welfare would be pleased with such a campaign, and I think they still are.

The true intent was to increase Morinaga's market share. Another purpose was to create a system that would secure large revenues for baby formula manufacturers. They claimed baby formula was much better that breastfeeding. Mothers who breastfed their children worried their children were not fed enough, if they seemed to have lost weight. Larger babies were preferable in those days. Taking advantage of this anxiety, they weighed children and compared their weight. “This one is breastfed, and this one is formula-fed. This one is fat, and looks healthier.” The "National Baby Contest" was an organized effort to take advantage of mothers' concerns about their babies' health, and to get them to switch from breast milk to formula. If a baby won the contest, the mother would be asked to switch from the formula she had been feeding to Morinaga. Some babies were affected because of this. The "National Baby Contest" was clearly a driver to expand the number of victims of the Morinaga arsenic milk poisoning case on a nationwide scale.

“Technology and Industrial Pollution” published by the United Nations University in 1985 also discusses NHK's "National Baby Contest" critically.

The following is a quotation from the relevant part of the article:

-Missing quotation-

Now, showing no signs of remorse, NHK is streaming the “National Baby Contest” online, which they believe would stir nostalgic and heartwarming feelings. I wonder if none of the people at NHK are aware of what they are doing?

And this is what happened at the hospitals. At the Okayama National Hospital and the Japan Red Cross Hospital, mothers carrying their babies waited in line at the hospital entrance under the scorching summer sun. The most severely ill children were laid on blankets spread in the hallway, creating a situation resembling that of a field hospital. Then, reports from media added fuel to the fire; they blurred the issue by saying Snow Brand and Meiji were also a problem. The number of patients rushing to the hospital doubled or tripled because of the ambiguity surrounding Morinaga, which resulted in a situation where children who really needed treatment could not get access to it.

My father visited the families of hospitalized patients for signatures, calling for the establishment of a group to seek relief for the victims against Morinaga. He set up a group called the Alliance of All Victims of Arsenic Poisoning in Okayama Prefecture, the name of which was subsequently changed. The fact that it changed its name four different times is a clear indication of Morinaga's oppressive influence, which is very easy to understand.

5． How did arsenic get into baby formula?

The national newspapers filled their entire editorial columns with articles on formulas day in and day out, which exemplified how the whole country was in a state of panic.

 Why on earth did this happen? I am going to explain why arsenic was mixed into baby formula. Let me put it simply: Morinaga wanted to increase its market share nationwide, and there was heightened pressure to sell the product. As a result, they ran short of raw materials at the manufacturing site. The raw material for baby formula is milk; nothing special. Some people may think it contains something special because of its high price, but it is milk. When milk is dried by hot air, it becomes powdered milk, which is more valuable. As powdered milk is more lucrative, they want to increase production. Baby formula manufacturers of the world will continue production.

Without the necessary raw materials production could not keep up with demand. Their measure to counter the situation was to have it transported from remote areas. There were no refrigerated trucks in those days. The milk spent hours in tank lorry-like vehicles during the transportation, and it was spoiled by the time it was delivered. Rotten milk is not drinkable, but once it is dried, it becomes powdered milk.

 Here is my hypothesis regarding their thinking process: They plotted to sell it as powdered milk, thinking people wouldn't recognize it, but they realized that consumers would know it, because "It was too obvious”. Why? When dissolving it in hot water, it formed lumps and did not dissolve easily. It could clearly reveal its poor quality. Perhaps they thought, "It's acidic, so it won't dissolve in water. We can neutralize it by adding something alkaline to it. Then it will dissolve in water.” They searched for what to be added as a neutralizing agent and hit upon something called "sodium secondary phosphate”. We don't need anything like that in our daily life.

To this date I am still not sure what secondary Sodium phosphate (IUPAC name: Disodium hydrogen phosphate) is primarily used for. Initially, Morinaga used this of a first class grade reagent or pharmacopoeia drug. That is why children did not die immediately. It is not clear how much they put in, but they probably started experimenting with it and found that it could neutralize it. Formulas were produced, however, in a mass production system. As for cans embossed with “MF” alone, which were made at a factory in Tokushima (the ones that caused the arsenic poisoning), the company shipped almost 1 million cans. With that system, there was no way that the (proper) secondary Sodium phosphate available at pharmacies would be able to keep up with the production needs. Sometime into the production, they suddenly started buying secondary Sodium phosphate derived from industrial waste, i.e., derived from industrial products, from drug wholesalers. What is "secondary sodium phosphate"? In fact, it itself is a problem. In those days, secondary sodium phosphate designated for industrial use was used as an insecticide or a strong detergent. Drug wholesalers supplied it to the Japanese National Railways at that time. The railway company operated steam locomotives, which had a coal-fired boiler at the front. Its inside was covered with soot. The company used a strong alkaline detergent, industrial grade secondary sodium phosphate to wash off the soot. What was great about the Japanese National Railways is that they performed quality tests on the detergent. The application was defined just as a detergent, but if workers inhaled, or the chemical entered their mouth, or contacted on the skin by mistake during the operations in their own workplaces, it could be absorbed from there and it could be hazardous. The results of their quality tests showed that it contained too much arsenic to use as a detergent. So, they returned it to Matsuno Pharmaceutical. Then Matsuno Pharmaceutical contacted Morinaga to promote the sales of the chemical. They might have presumed that Morinaga, too, would use it as a detergent. Morinaga accepted the offer. However, without telling Matsuno Pharmaceutical, of course, Morinaga secretly began to mix it in their formula.

Inconceivable was that that was a gimmick which eventually aided Morinaga to be judged non-guilty. Why? The gist of their argument is as follows: on the box it said, "secondary Sodium phosphate”.  Since Matsuno Pharmaceutical wrote it, this must be secondary Sodium phosphate. When it was first used, arsenic poisoning did not occur. It started happening sometime after that. So, we were deceived by Matsuno Pharmaceutical. In other words, Morinaga began to say, we were the victims of deception by a "malicious chemical supplier." (Matsuno testified at the time, and the media reported, that it had delivered the product as a detergent and had never thought of it to be used in the baby formula.)

However, the Japanese prosecutors were powerless in this regard, and after a while Morinaga was acquitted. In fact, Matsuno Pharmaceutical explicitly stated that they had never expected to have it put in the formula. But why were they acquitted? That is because there is a very troublesome problem in the judiciary system, which is that if the composition of the lawsuit is not well designed, the company could be acquitted. I will not discuss the judiciary system here as it is very cumbersome. In short, Morinaga's argument can be summarized simply as follows: "(Industrial wastes of industrial products) did not kill people early on. However, since they died later. we were also victims (as we were cheated into accepting the defective products delivered by the drug wholesaler). In principle, the prosecutors should have examined based on the definition of industrial products versus extra pure reagent and pharmacopoeia drug, but they did not. They made a very primitive and simple prosecution and lost. In the light of the current prevailing wisdom, it is an extremely criminal act to put additives derived from industrial products into baby formula as it is to be fed to infants. It was discussed this way in the sentencing of a winning case. In short, the quality of industrial additives derived from industrial waste was not assured.  As for extra pure reagent, secondary sodium phosphate consists of almost nothing but secondary sodium phosphate even at the PPM level, but that was not the case for industrial products. Industrial-grade secondary sodium phosphate might contain many impurities other than secondary sodium phosphate. In extreme cases, things like potassium cyanide could be included. That is why it could be used as a detergent or insecticide only. (Even so, the JNR did inspect the product to ensure it was not toxic.

But the fact was, in addition to arsenic, there was also sodium tertiary phosphate, vanadium, and other impermissible substances. Moreover, Morinaga's industrial balance remained out of order, and the company did not take time to fix the broken balance, so operators measured additives derived from industrial waste with their eyes. Therefore, some victims died after consuming two cans, but somebody like my sister survived from detoxification after drinking 22 cans worth of formula. That could mean that Morinaga was shipping such inhumane products with varying amount of arsenic contained in a can.

Furthermore, Morinaga at that time did not conduct sensory testing. Sensory inspections are ones in which the company's own employees eat the products they produce to make sure they are safe before shipping them. It is a basic inspection (for the food industry) that if there are no problems after eating the product, it is shipped. They did not even do it. The fact of the matter is that they had no sense that they were making something that would go into people's mouths, and they were selling it as a profitable product that could be sold rapidly under such circumstances. But it was baby formula.

Even after the incident was unearthed, Morinaga's insensibility was well demonstrated when mailing the apology letter to victims by using promotional envelopes of the same brand baby formula. A printed apology letter was inserted in the envelope on which a wrong department was crossed out as a sender and only the recipient's address was written with no date. This envelope was given to us by a victim who was outraged by the apology letter itself.

This slide shows a demonstration of 700 victims' families marching through a shopping arcade in Okayama City in 1955, a few months after the incident. They were fighting for the victims' alliance, but the incident was crushed into pieces the following year and onwards. This is the horrifying part of the Morinaga Incident. It was an issue of aftereffects. This slide shows Morinaga's response, but the parents were most concerned about the aftereffects. It was not about money. It was about tracking the aftereffects. (Dead children would leave some compensation behind.) But living children could not be saved by any amount of money, because it all started when they were 0 year old.

 "Track the sequelae and insure if any problems are identified." This was the main objective of the parents' movement. However, Morinaga announced, "We feel fully responsible for sequelae. However, the truth has not yet been found, and we will do our best when it is.”

6． For the first time since the end of World War II, the government, the government-patronized scholars, and the corporations have combined to put the incident to rest

They flat say things like this without reservations. This mindset was supported by three evil organizations, which I will explain now. These were set up by the national government with Morinaga urging them to do so.

Morinaga successfully had the Ministry of Health and Welfare establish the Committee of Five. One day suddenly we read about this committee in the newspapers. They did not have any discussion with the victims. Those people who we never met emerged and argued, “there is no sequelae,” and “it has been only a few months and infants less than one year old would be free from sequelae for the rest of their lives if they had an intake of arsenic.” This 15-line statement was buried in a 30,000-letter statement. Out of the blue they announced very concisely that sequelae was unthinkable, deposits of 250,000 yen would be offered to the families of dead children and the rest would receive 10,000 yen uniformly. The purpose of this announcement by the committee was to declare that there was no sequelae. Despite the fact that the committee was created by the idea of the company, Morinaga said, “Suddenly this organization was created. We negotiated with the victims so far, but the government requested that we place ourselves under their supervision. Thereby we would no longer be able to talk with them.” We later learned that Morinaga worked throughout the nights to convince the Ministry of Health and Welfare to set up the Committee of Five.

This slide shows a.k.a “the Committee of Six”, which established “the criteria of recovery”. As the parents were concerned about the sequelae, the company wanted to contain it quickly. Once it is achieved, they could not demand anything. For that aim, they established Nishizawa Committee of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (a.k.a the Committee of Six). ”The criteria of Recovery” was coerced on physicians. They were trained to make a judgment of recovery when the abdomen that swelled like a mountain became flat, the dilated liver improved a little bit and increased white blood cells decreased. That was what the criteria of recovery was all about. Acute arsenic poisoning subsides one way or another anyway. The amount of arsenic in the body goes down quickly due to urination and diarrhea. The arsenic poisoning acute symptoms subside, but arsenic damages not only internal organs but head and brain and subsequently causes serious systemic sequelae. Nonetheless they claimed that sequelae was not present and they could be judged cured when they looked like any other babies. The Criteria of Recovery made that claim possible. Chronologically Nishizawa Committee was replaced by “the Committee of Five” which declared “no sequelae”. The committee crafted a conspiracy. The idea was that the victims' groups would get angry when they saw the report of the "Committee of Five," and when they did, the company would lead public opinions convincing the public that "the victims' groups were in it for the money. Then they (victims' groups) would be isolated. It took one or two years for the victims’ families to realize that that was what happened to them. It did not matter which doctor they went to see, because all they did was to check with a stethoscope and said, "Okay, you're cured.” A detailed medical checkup was performed, then a postcard arrived stating that no abnormality was found. Because of this, newspapers stopped writing about this case from the following year onwards.

However, since universities produce doctors year after year, Morinaga decided that for the company to prosper forever, all new doctors must be muzzled. To do that, Morinaga decided to distribute money to medical schools of national and private universities nationwide. They wanted to manipulate the entire pediatrics department or the entire medical school with money. With that aim in mind, "Morinaga Service Foundation" was established aided by the authorization of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This was an organization designed just to distribute research funds. This was particularly vicious. There have been dozens or hundreds of people who have been bought off with the funds. Whether or not they were accomplices, government-patronized scholars, or premeditated offenders, this enabled Morinaga to block the victims for 10 to 20 years. If this were done now, the same thing would probably happen. I only hope that people today would not allow it to go this far, but these three organizations were ironclad, perfect crime organizations. This strategy was also employed in subsequent outbreaks of Minamata disease. However, it was not possible to implement them all for the case of Minamata disease, because all of them were practiced in the Morinaga case. So, one thing they did was to use the government-patronized scholars from the University of Tokyo, who argued that the cause of Minamata disease was not what was widely believed. Minamata would fight through and through. Going through very difficult battles, they moved toward relief. When all three were put into practice, we were powerless. Moreover, a foundation called Morinaga Service Foundation subsidized research expenses, which required capital. I imagined that Morinaga had financed it by themselves, but it was not the case. Of the 20 million yen in capital at that time, half of it was associated with these arsenic formula cans. 800,000 of which were collected nationwide. At that time, it was announced in the newspapers that they were to be disposed of, but it was only true in Okinawa. The cans from all over Japan except Okinawa were all collected by train in Tokyo, where they were mixed with chicken feed and resold. This is poison laundering. This is what drug syndicate might do but this is what our state government did. This is the first and hopefully the last case in history. Why on earth did they do this? Chickens died in large numbers. Poultry farms did not know that arsenic was the cause of the chicken deaths, and people ate it, which is dreadful. They diluted the poison, probably thinking that no one would find out. Moreover, they used the "superstition" in their sales pitch that if you mixed a little arsenic in the chicken feed, the chickens would get fatter. This way they sold the product to the traders. This is a 100-year-old superstition, which had not been proven. People bought it because it was endorsed by the government. People ate it in eggs and chicken. It didn't kill them, nor caused acute arsenic poisoning symptoms. Nevertheless, the Japanese people ingested more arsenic than they were supposed to at that time. This is directly related to the radiation story, but no one has been accountable for this. It was all about money.

As I said earlier, the parents only asked for tracking of the aftereffects. My father proposed something called the Health Organization Initiative to track the aftereffects. Morinaga said, "Victims’ proposal is very positive. Okay, okay, we will create such an organization, so stop fighting. We will fully grant your request, and do the medical checkups, so stop this kind of crunching and clunking. We will create one.” My father had a suspicion and wondered whether they really meant it. But since the policy of isolation was already in place and effective, he decided to believe Morinaga's words about creating a health organization and dissolved the victims' group ("National Council of Morinaga Formula Victims' Alliance" (abbreviated as Zenkyo)). Soon he realized what they created was the "Morinaga Service Association. This was a foundation, approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, but, what a surprise, it was an organization that, once again, started convincing people through university professors that their children would gain weight if they were given Morinaga's formula. Hence, for the first time, we could clearly see that we had been deceived. My father and other parents of the victims promptly reorganized the "Okayama Prefecture Association to Protect Children from Morinaga Formula Addiction" following the dissolution of the Zenkyo. （It became clear that we had been deceived (by Morinaga) and were disgusted by the company, but it was already too late. Especially the "government-premediated medical checkups" were conducted at that time. If you wanted to see a doctor, we would assign you to our designated doctor for a thorough examination. When you underwent the examination, the response had been already prepared, stating you were all cured. The "cure postcard" came. This was printed with a seal stamped. (The stamp was the name of the hospital.) The only difference was the name of the hospital. Nowadays, this kind of practice is not acceptable even in the case of the “phone scam involving calls from pretended relatives in distress”, but this is what is meant by "government-premediated medical checkups”. After being victimized by this kind of tactics, in two years’ time, only four families would gather at the victims' gathering. This continued for more than 10 years. Even if these people wrote a letter to the newspaper, explaining the up-to-date situation of the victims, the letter was ignored by “the letter to the editor”.

7． From the 50-year history of Morinaga Milk Industry,the Devil's Dictionary, which brags about victim elimination

Even today, there is a magazine called Josei Jishin or Women themselves, and a reporter named Masao Hirasawa wrote about the Morinaga Incident for this magazine. It was written seven or eight years after the incident, but even then, the publication of the article was canceled. When it was about to be published in two days or so, Morinaga applied blatant pressure, threatening the publisher that Morinaga would stop advertisements all together. Hence, the magazine decided to cancel the publication of the article.

This is what has been proven (externally) as an example of Morinaga's blatant pressure on the media. Morinaga revealed by themselves that they exerted pressure, explaining how they crushed the victims’ initiatives. Around 1967, Morinaga published a book titled "50 Years of History of Morinaga Milk”. This book was edited and complied by Dentsu. In the book, they gave a detail account about how they oppressed the victims, giving out the real names (of the organizations they acquired and manipulated). The reason why Morinaga created this corporate history is assumed that they must feel confident that they had completely crushed the victim relief movement because at this point, the overt activities by the victims' organizations were hardly noticeable. Otherwise, they would not have been comfortable to write such a thing.

Morinaga's ways of operation are explicitly described here by Morinaga themselves. What I am talking about is based on Morinaga's own statement, except they are in my own words. The following is a gist. “The Baby Contest began in Okayama. We met with Dr. Hamamoto of Okayama University, who was planning to organize a competitive baby show in the prefecture. (How inappropriate the expression the "baby show" is.) He said that if it was to be held, it should be a public event to be conducted by the prefecture, but they didn't have a budget for it. When we offered fund, they thanked us. Furthermore, it stated that at the time, it was the Sanyo Shimbun Newspaper that was favorable to Morinaga. In those days a different formula company had an 80% share of the market in Okayama, but this was reversed in barely two years. Seeing the effect of this, the company spread the campaign nationwide. NHK was instrumental in this. Due to the public nature of NHK, they did not write specifically (that it was NHK). However, they boasted that “Morinaga had a good relationship with public entities such as the public health department and the prefectural government and these people worked under us which drove success to the initiative up to “MF”. They said proudly (of his success in winning over the administration).They even said things like this. This is the summary of their statements. "The baby contest was a very big event, and after the Sanyo Shimbun was brought on board, Tokushima was the next, and other places started to follow suit." They said as-a-matter-of-factly. “The market share here (in the area where the baby contest was held) reversed.” “Let us all remember this," and “employees should read it carefully". “We can't be number one unless we do these things." “We instilled the habit in the staff at that time of utilizing (snaring) the local newspapers to achieve it" They prided themselves on what they had done. "We reversed our market share. Although there happened an incident, well, that was OK, we firmly instilled the habit of utilizing local newspapers." It was also Morinaga that started using Sazae-san animation show for its advertisements. Even now, when I see Sazae-san, I feel somewhat uneasy. “We also used "Wakame-chan" and "And we had a movie night." I don't know what kind of movie they used for the event, but it explicitly says that their target was public health nurses. "We are going to educate public health nurses”, which is a very high-handed way of saying. It also explained their (Morinaga Milk Industry's) origins. “Morinaga Milk Industry was just one of the product departments under Morinaga's umbrella.” After the war, confectioneries did not sell well. Morinaga Seika was almost on the verge of bankruptcy because they were considered luxury products. So, it was explained that "the dairy division became independent and helped Morinaga Seika.

　The following statements sound hollow: "The MF incident somehow happened. Normally, the company would have gone out of business. But we recovered surprisingly quickly, didn't we?” It goes on, "All that damage inflicted on us;” they themselves killed (took many lives). "We suffered more damage." This is their honest statement, but of an unprecedentedly ill natured. Big companies don't reveal their true feelings (but Morinaga wrote their true feelings here).

I am not saying that all large corporations are bad. I am adding the word "ill natured”. It is an ill-natured, very peculiar company. How did they make money after such an incident?　(The means) was to repeat "goodwill toward Morinaga" in a publicity campaign through and through. “This is the basic principle behind our publicity," so they wrote. Furthermore, while emphasizing that "the promotion was to plant Morinaga's corporate image in the mother's love," they concluded by saying, "Recently, we did a radio drama program called 'Love’. We always focus on love."

If you don't know the Morinaga case, you don't know what is all about. "A mother's love for her child is purely sentimental. This is what makes so appealing.” The advertisement unit said so.

In essence, they talked about "mother's love" in the same vein as bragging about the neglect of the victim.

Do you understand this? I have read this dozens of times, but I still haven't had enough time to understand this feeling. There is a picture of an executive talking about it. I wonder if they were not ashamed of it. They are all in the picture revealing their faces. I think that the executive directors of the dairy department, the confectionery department, and Dentsu at that time, and in the foreground here, must be the managing director of Dentsu. I call this group the propaganda unit.

This is probably a structure that reflects the modern times.  In this same book, there are pages that details the titles of the people involved in the "Morinaga Service Association," the foundation that I mentioned earlier that distributes money. This is really interesting, and it goes on over two pages. If you enlarge the pages, you will see that the head of the Committee of Five is the head of the Tokyo Saiseikai Hospital. but I assume (this hospital is) a designated hospital of All Morinaga, perhaps Morinaga's labor union. This person's title appears to be the former head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Bureau of Sanitation, who collected 800,000 cans of arsenic formula in Tokyo Metropolitan Government and laundered. I realized he played multiple roles. Mr. Ohno was the president. Also, two lawyers, including Mr. Tasuku Yamazaki. Mr. Yamazaki was a lawyer and a former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. So when their names came up in the third-party committee, no one could voice their opinions. Watch out for the title "president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations”. Also, Utsumi, who I think was one of the most vicious among the Committee of Five, was listed in the Committee of Five as the chief editor of Jiji Press. But when you look closely here, he was a commentator for NHK. (He added the titles of "Commentator of NHK, Professor of Komazawa University, former chief editor of current news at Sangyo Keizai Shimbun" to "Auditor, Morinaga Service Foundation") This is how I came to understood for the first time how the "baby contest” came about. I also realized that this is why the Sankei newspaper still praises Morinaga so highly. I started to vaguely understand the context. Moreover, St. Luke's Hospital is also listed here. They all seem to have enjoyed cozy relationships with each other in their journey to success.

Many councilors, trustees, etc. sit on the "Committee of Five". As you can see, in addition to Nishizawa (Osaka University) and Hamamoto (Okayama University), the two big names who created the fraudulent diagnostic criteria in the Nishizawa Committee, there was also the president of the Veterinary Medical Association.  All in all, it’s very unpleasant to see so many famous medical university professors on the committee, 27 in total, including the Director General of the National Children's Hospital, the Director General of the Environmental Bureau, the Director General of the Public Health Bureau, the Director General of the Environmental Health Department, the Director General of the Ministry of Children’s Health and Welfare, the Director General of the Tokyo Bureau of Hygiene, the Manager of the National Institute of Hygienic Sciences, and the Director of the Dairy Business Technology Association. The President of the Women's Health Section of the Aikukai is also named. This is a list of all the individuals and organizations to which the Morinaga Service Association has been disbursing money over this 11 year period.

８．That period that allowed oppressive criminal corporations to continue

Thus began 14 years of darkness, and from around 1957 until 1969, everyone, including the mass media, pretended that the Morinaga Incident had never happened and remained silent. Therefore, the public completely forgot about the Morinaga Incident. About 1965, four families, including us, felt that we had reached our limit and considered quitting the movement to expose the injustice, or simply dissolving the organization entirely. At that time, Morinaga came to us with a "memento of the dissolution of the movement organization!” Morinaga is a company that does such things.

Having distributed surveys across the country, my father realized the true extent of the damage that had been caused. Other families affected by the poisoning, not previously active in the movement, offered their support and encouraged my father to continue his efforts.

 At that time, my father’s failed attempts to convince the government, the media, and public institutions of the problem suggested a complete change in strategy was required. As eleven years had passed, my father decided to form a secret organization in Okayama dedicated to taking measures against the harmful effects of companies like Morinaga. As a secret base of operations, the Okayama University Department of Medicine provided a classroom for public use.

Members of the Okayama Writers Association, including my father, having learned of the situation, angrily pledged their lives to support the victims in their struggle against Morinaga. They began a campaign to influence scholars at both Okayama University and Osaka University under the influence of Morinaga.

The first action was Professor Hiroshi Maruyama’s first visit in 14 years, which is rather well known. He was a hygienist at Osaka University. His department of Osaka University was different from that of Prof. Yoshito Nishizawa, an authority on pediatrics and an Osaka University scholar on Morinaga’s payroll.

People specialized in public health and epidemiology took action. They called on public health nurses, nursing care teachers, and medical students among others to visit the homes of 68 victims for no pay, interviewed them and received honest feedback. A report was generated incorporating their input as is excluding private information such names one by one. It was scheduled to be presented at the university. Some participants were asked to undertake it as part of their work and are assumed to have done it during their business hours. Some of them asked not to publicize the report, fearing that they might be fired once it was made public. Professor Hideyasu Aoyama of Okayama University, who showed up at the venue for the announcement (which means that Okayama University and Osaka University were collaborating with each other) inspired them. He said, "It is the wish of the victims that you announce it.” Asahi Shimbun took it up as an exclusive story. The Asahi Shimbun was the only newspaper that came to cover the story. A reporter of the newspaper company reported that he had happened to be at the venue to find out about the announcement, which I think was premeditated. I believe that this trick was created by taking advantage of a characteristic of the media: when one newspaper reveals a story ahead of the competition, the other companies follow the suit. Asahi Shimbun featured this article using the entire city news page on October 19, 1969, which took everyone by surprise. It shocked the whole country, reminding them that such an incident had occurred 14 years earlier and that they had turned a blind eye to it. From there, the movement exploded, but the truth is that this was not enough to win. The report covered stories of many people, disclosing that people had been suffering from serious disabilities after consuming Morinaga Formula when they were babies. It was written in a way easy to read and resonated in the heart of many. But it was not a scientific paper. Nevertheless it had impact big enough to move the media.

There was one more important investigation, an epidemiological investigation that would begin. It later had very significant implications. This was a joint epidemiological survey conducted by the Department of Hygiene at Okayama University, the School of Medicine and Dentistry at Hiroshima University, and multiple different universities working across the institutional borders. This is a kid of survey many people wish to have but feel frustrated because it is difficult to come by. Statistical survey was conducted on the victims. Physicians examined them without the prior knowledge about them. A conclusion was drawn stating that there were this many people with sequelae and when this population was statistically compared to other groups, it was abnormal. The investigation covered the entire country looking for a community where the victims still stayed together before they dispersed for higher education and found that there was a concentration of victims in the Town of Senogawa, Hiroshima Prefecture. A tent was set up there to conduct a large-scale survey. It is said that it was all financed by the research fund of the universities that university researchers accumulated for ten years for their research. This kind of initiative was probably unprecedented in Japan. This was a specialized academic paper in public health　generated in accordance with the cutting edge American epidemiological methods. Therefore, it had a power that public health scholars had no choice but to acknowledge. This effort and the paper have been recognized highly worldwide. The case has helped the world to know that children could have such consequences when they took in arsenic when they were very young. This also contributed very much to the conviction of Morinaga.

One of other indispensable materials was the "History of the Morinaga Formula Incident" (published in 1957), created by my father. This discusses a turbulent history within a year of the outbreak in 1955. A reprint of this book was published privately by citizens 14 years later, titled "Arsenic Formula II”. In addition, "Arsenic Formula I: 16 Years of Victims' Elimination by Morinaga and Accomplices" was written by citizen writers (Masahiko Tanikawa and Eitaro Nose) to depict the struggles of the 14 years after the incident occurred. About 30,000 copies of "Arsenic Formula I" and "Arsenic Formula II" were disseminated throughout Japan. These books were read by universities, medical faculties, and highly conscious citizens throughout Japan. From Tokyo to Kyushu, a citizens' group called "Morinaga Kokuhatsu or Accusation against Morinaga" (officially named “A Group that Accuses the arsenic formula manufacturing company, Morinaga and all those who supported its crimes) was formed. I think people read four books and deepened their understanding of the current situation of the victims, which was the first progress made so far. You can download this and this (Arsenic Formula I and II) free of charge from the History of the Arsenic Formula Movement section of our website.

（画像挿入？）

In 1969, the corporate crime came to light again, and families of victims, who had fought their way through 14 years in isolation, went to the conference to sit in. We generally don't do this kind of thing. Government-patronized scholars were unperturbed despite the announcement of "the first visit in 14 years" in 1969. They persistently said again, "There have been no sequelae".  They seemingly intentionally held an academic conference in Okayama City, the home of the relief movement, and began preparations to make presentations of their papers. We learned this via media personnel. Normally, people in the media would never disclose secrecy information, but he consciously shared it with us, adding, "This is the only exception in my reporter career.” A reporter from the Mainichi Shimbun let us know that (Morinaga, the government, and the government-patronized physicians consciously) picked Okayama as a venue for the conference. We learned that they were going to hold an academic conference in Okayama and make a declaration that there had been no sequelae. We stayed up all night making a large banner. Only members of the four victims’ families secured a place at the entrance to hold up a banner saying, "Professor Nishizawa of Osaka University, will you again work for Morinaga for their benefit?” As you can see in this slide that everyone in this protest was wearing a headband "Murderous Company Morinaga". In this conference we saw for the first time that some physicians shed tears (in repentance) Physicians had not been informed of this, either. Some conscientious doctors began to say, "We have to think about how to make up for the offenses committed by our colleagues," and these people brought about a major change in the academic society.

Morinaga, however, had an attitude, implying, "We don't care (about that). Don’t make a fuss.” “They were already acquitted." In order to declare once more that "there had been no residual sequelae," they held the conference in none other than Okayama and declared that they would start "government-organized medical checkups" in Okayama once again. It is a little difficult to understand their mindset, but at any rate, both the government and Morinaga were explicitly showing their combativeness toward the victims. When they would pick up a fight, we, too, were ready to stir up ourselves to fight. Naturally, the victims' groups boycotted (the government-organized medical checkups), but the only Min-Iren or the National Association for Democratic Medical Institutions complied, which advocates democratic medical care, and they joined forces with them. They said of themselves, "We must not just oppose, we must make constructive proposals, and we will participate by appealing for independence, democracy, and openness." They handed over the victims' data to the group of the government-organized medical checkups. (They ended up contributing to bolstering authority and legitimacy of "government-organized medical examinations.")

Basically, the citizens of "Morinaga Accusation" and the doctors of Okayama University said that we must never cooperate, and we must boycott them. In the meanwhile, we did research and campaigning that were needed, which generated evidence we could use in court trials to protest.

Let me go off a tangent a little bit. I mentioned earlier that arsenic could cause various symptoms. Today’s take-away message that I would like you to remember is that arsenic crosses the blood-brain barrier. So does organic mercury, which was the cause of Minamata disease. The human body has a function, probably the working of molecular biology, to shut out heavy metals from the brain, which is the most important control tower, and this function is called the blood-brain barrier (although there is no physical checkpoint). There is such a "barrier function," and in fact, this is also found in the placenta. It is called the blood-placental barrier, and it also has the same function of shutting out for the placenta. However, substances such as mercury, arsenic, nicotine, and narcotics can pass through there. In fact, this knowledge about arsenic was prevalent worldwide and existed even before the incident. Nevertheless, the Japanese medical community has denied this knowledge since the incident occurred. In other words, the idea that arsenic does not cause sequelae (does not pass through the blood-brain-placental barrier) was a view that was accepted only by the Japanese medical community (after the incident), but not by the rest of the world.

In other words, it is common prevailing knowledge that arsenic reaches the brain, but Japan denied this for more than a decade, and it was eventually clarified by professors in the Department of Hygiene, Okayama University School of Medicine, Hiroshima University, using epidemiological methods. Moreover, those doctors looked closely at the forensic data from Okayama University, and to their horror, they found that arsenic ingested as an infant physically destroys the blood vessels in the infant's brain. A doctor from the Okayama University School of Medicine testified that he saw blood vessels in the brain dissolve into pieces and disappear. When he saw this, he said, "It was a tremendous shock, not only because the heavy metal passed through the barrier and reached the brain, but also because it physically destroyed the blood vessels in the brain itself. So common sense tells us that it is devastating. We are not just talking about disabilities.” Someone said that nicotine also crosses the blood-brain barrier, and it was made into a Hollywood movie called "The Insider". A vice president of a real tobacco company in the U.S. blew the whistle on this fact, even though his family had become dysfunctional and he had lost his job. The tobacco company lost a national tobacco lawsuit filed by the U.S. state government, and the company ended up paying about $200 billion in damages. The decisive clincher was the testimony that nicotine crosses the blood-brain barrier.

Therefore, no matter what (government-patronized) doctors said, or how much they insisted there had been no sequelae, if it passes, there are definitely sequelae 100% of the time.

９． Full-Scale Morinaga Product Boycott

Medical doctors could no longer deny this valuable medical knowledge. Nevertheless, Morinaga was not going to offer any relief. Morinaga devoted themselves to retaliatory propaganda, saying, "We have always been a friendly company, so if you make such a fuss, we will do a lot of things for you.” They disseminated this kind of information to deceive people. Morinaga was not sincere at all and would not listen to the victims. Citizens in a group “Morinaga Accusers”, or university professors, concluded, "Okay, if that is how they are, then let's destroy Morinaga." And that is a summary of what happened. Of course, there was a serious conflict before getting to that point. We launched a campaign for the full-scale boycott of Morinaga products, in order to push Morinaga to the point of bankruptcy. Within a year or two, Morinaga's market share plummeted to one-fifth. This strategy hit Morinaga the hardest. When the sales dropped, they implored the Ministry of Health and Welfare to set up a meeting with them. I would think that if they had time to throw themselves on the ministry’s mercy, they could have made a direct contact with the victims' group, but they did not do so. Here is another problem. They cheated and pretended to have lost once.

This is a sticker created by the Morinaga Accusers, and this was distributed and was all over town, all over Japan. A large sign was posted at my house, saying "Don't buy Morinaga", because of which I was bullied at school. However, even if you assumed a resolute and determined attitude, i.e., "boycott Morinaga," no one would "boycott" immediately. What we actually did was obstructing their business" (laughs). I heard that my mother went to the basement food section of a local department store every day and stood in the corner where Morinaga products were shelved and said, "Please don't buy Morinaga. This is a terrible company that kills children.” I don't know how she got by with it without getting sued or getting the bum’s rush. Normally they would. But they could not probably because of the overwhelming support of the public. In fact, even in 1955, the year the incident occurred, there was an attempt to boycott Morinaga for they were despicable, but it was not possible. In fact, I believe that the "Protect Group" eventually included this as an option, but they knew that in order to do this, they had to make the Japanese public well aware of the severity of the incident. I believe that my father chose this timing carefully, too, because he knew who Morinaga really was. This is a movement that was started ahead by the "Morinaga Accusers," and the “Protect Group” joined the movement only afterwards. The strategy to ensure each and every citizen, in other words, the general public who were not victims, to understand the case (and that the victims' families joined the movement on the basis of this sufficient public opinion) was the key to the great success of the campaign to boycott Morinaga's products.

１０．Morinaga found guilty

With everything added up, Morinaga became finally convicted. In a "remand trial", the factory manager was convicted. The president was not convicted. The Japanese judiciary does not punish organized crimes. This is a serious issue. It needs to be changed. Only the factory manager was convicted. Moreover, they said that they would pay unlimited relief money, which was unimaginable. This was a bit suspicious, since Morinaga had not paid a penny, and that they refused to provide a permanent relief (It was a red herring. They distracted their attention by proposing lump-sum payment as a permanent measure). Newspapers wrote that it was a settlement, a de facto end to the case.

１１． Victims were targeted again for bribe

However, this incident did not end here. After that, it unfolded itself in many unexpected ways. For example, some victim's families experienced the death of their children. These people got on the tailwind and file a claim for damages. I can relate to that. The child was already dead and nothing could be gained, so at the very least, they wanted to be compensated for the damages of the deceased child, but actually, this was where Morinaga began its "bribing" of the parents again. I call it a strong backdoor bribe.

What this means is that the parents of the deceased child in this newspaper article were not in a victim group. But they were certainly victims. So they filed a lawsuit. The company offered money to the (first) plaintiff. It was a bribe of the parents' hearts and minds. It's not usually publicized, but I think they were doing it on a much larger scale than this. Neither the party receiving the money nor the party paying out the money says anything. However, it happened to be discovered that Morinaga was distributing money to the parents. When it came to light, what did the parents say? They said matter-of-factly, "It's probably a slush fund.” What happened was that a settlement was reached in court in a lawsuit claiming damages by the death. The official amount was 2.95 million yen. That was what has been officially announced, but behind the scenes, Morinaga paid 16 million yen to the parents. This sounds like contempt of court. So, normally this kind of story would not come to surface, but it did. Moreover, the parents called it a slush fund.

To this date I am still annoyed by the discrepancy between the (seemingly sincere) public announcement stating that they would provide unlimited money for relief.

There is another anecdote. A lawsuit for deceased victims involved not just one but many people. Morinaga hired lawyers to fight against the parents who would not be silenced by the off-the-book money. The plaintiff was Mr. Hagiwara, a bereaved family in Tokushima, and (Morinaga) wanted to win this case. The company was combat ready. In the meantime, they were telling the victims' groups that they would cooperate with public relief and were willing to provide unlimited money. This discrepancy reveals a very complicated structure. Morinaga already began to take control of this stage (the stage after the establishment of the relief organization). Well, they did not have it all under their control, but they began to distribute money.

In order to crush the bereaved families who would not fall into line, Morinaga requested the victims' groups to share all of the confidential documents with their lawyers that the victims' group had in their possession. And the victims' groups consented. My father was alone in objecting to this. The plaintiffs in this case were not members of this victims' association, but they were victims regardless. Since they were not members of the organization, the association could not do much on behalf of them, but the association wished them all the best. Isn’t it how it should have been? However, the victims' group made an institutional decision and agreed to the request to hand over to Morinaga confidential materials in their possession, that had never been shown to Morinaga. Intended use of these materials was to attack the victims. My father opposed, and this resulted in his expulsion from the organization that my father himself had created. He was furious, saying, "How can we do such a thing like dancing a naked dance (letting ourselves out) (to Morinaga). What are they thinking?” The leaders of the victims' organization said, "Our organization made a democratic decision by majority vote," and decided to allow Morinaga's lawyers access to their documents.

Oh well, where do you think the (confidential) materials were? They were in my house. They were about 300,000 A4 size pages long, the volume that requires five lockers to store. One day, members of the victims' group banded together with employees of Morinaga Milk Industry, broke through the gate, and tried to storm into my house. My mother happened to be there then, so she intercepted them by outstretching her arms, which was ridiculous. The materials were never handed over. But what eventually became clear was that a number of executives of the victims' organization seemed to have formed back-scratching alliance with Morinaga, perhaps through some kind of intermediary. They were the parents of children who were all victims.

The parents of the victims received dirty money. This was the reality of Japan that we did not wish to see. My father was ultimately expelled from the group. We came to know about the financial wrongdoing of the victims' organizations and the relief fund, and we were an inch away from blowing the whistle on them with documentation after investigation. At that point, however, he was caught in a trap and officially "expelled" from the organization.

In a book my father said, "Many parents were silenced when Morinaga bought them off." He was actually referring to an incident in 1955. In fact, in 1955, a large number of parents of victims were bribed by Morinaga, and they remained silent even though their children had been harmed. This was another reality of Japan that we do not want to see. My father was expressly cautious, saying this could repeatedly happen. He clearly wrote in his book ("20 Years of the Morinaga Arsenic Milk Struggle") that this idea hit upon him when the movement went nationwide in 1968. He said, "Again, an undisciplined mob might gather, and end up being bought off for money." He was determined that they must build a more solid organization than ever." In fact, an unwithering organization was created, but in the end, the firmly established discipline served against him and he was expelled from the organization. After his expulsion, my father continued, "Relief for victims is not guaranteed irrespective of who is doing it, whether it is run by a victims’ group. Monitoring by others matters most.” In other words, the victims cannot be trusted simply on that basis alone. You shouldn’t trust them unconditionally just because they are a victims' group. "Oversight” is required. Furthermore, he said, "Support from people is indispensable for the victory by the victims, and we must do our best to give back to the people. My father was expelled in 1986 by political conspiracy. My father consistently said, "We must not pursue the egoism inherent in victims.” I feel hesitant to mention this, but he called it "victims’ egoism. That illustrates how messy the whole things were.

１２． Implementation of "relief" measures

Morinaga was mandated to come up with the "Permanent Relief Measure Proposal," which was a groundbreaking proposal, the first of its kind in Japan and the first of its kind in the world. It required that the perpetrating company must bear the cost of relief for the victims for the rest of their lives. It has been 30 years since my father was expelled from the organization. During this course of time, efforts were made to water down its objective. (Showing slides) This is all that has been done. In the beginning, this many things were identified to be implemented. Various things were included such a program of reintegration into society and so on. If they had been all implemented, it would have been celebrated as the best practice in the field of relief projects in the world, but it is Morinaga's intention to never let (these things) be done. The idea is that they could win victims' associations over easily, and they would spare no money for that. This is all that is being done now. Moreover, these things do not cost much money at all, such as issuing handbooks, outsourcing to public vocational training centers, and so on. All that is implemented now is at low cost. Currently Morinaga gives out 1.6 billion yen every year. Somehow, 40% of that money is not directed to the victims. There are about 30 full-time employees in this organization, and only one or two of them run the office. The rest are educated to have no doubt about taking a rake-off of 40% of the money. I assume that an enormous amount of money is being consumed for medical examinations by various "democratic health care organizations", and various expenses of democratic health care professionals, and others. This is an analysis by my father when he was contemplating to blow the whistle. At the time, the expenses were categorized into project expenses which was to help victims and administrative expenses, but my father revealed the whole truth. In short, they manipulated the expenses. Their fraudulent practice of reallocating expenses made it look as if about 70% of the money  had been directly spent on relief projects for the victims.（The amount equivalent to an administrative expense was treated as if it were a project expense by renaming it and manipulating the expense line items, and then it was posted as the project expense.) This one was presented to victims, (which had a larger amount of the project cost). The reality, however, was this was the truth; (the project expenses accounted for only less than 60%). The victims have not known this. This has been practiced for a long time.

Furthermore, Morinaga is now offering a maximum of around 40,000 yen to severely disabled victims. But this is the maximum, about 40,000 yen for a person who has lost all physical mobility. If the reality is revealed, people would say that it is too little, so they ostensibly claim that they guarantee 90,000 to 100,000 yen per victim per month, in which the government's disability pension is included on top of their own payment. That is our tax money. Morinaga is not paying for it. In short, they ensure that the victims receive the government's disability pension so that the total would amount to 90,000 yen or 100,000 yen. One might say, "If they are entitled to it, why not take it?" But, some people may argue, "Is it right to use the taxpayers' money (to pay for Morinaga's offences, and help Morinaga save its spending)?

１３． Victims discriminated against and controlled their peers

On the other hand, if a victim’s disability worsens from minor to severe, what happens is that the government's disability pension (which is used for padding up) will naturally increase (from level 2 to level 1). Then, you would think that Morinaga's expenditures would naturally increase as well, wouldn't you? I would think so, too, but it will not increase. Instead, it will decrease. When this injustice was complained, some people challenge saying, “Do people with severe disabilities need 100,000 yen?”  Hearing this, how can I suppress my indignation? (I personally have suppressed it) and 18 years have already passed. It is a "head-cutting" idea, as shown in the slide.

In short, the executives of the victims' groups and relief fund would think that 100,000 yen should be more than enough for a victim with severe disabilities. The whole system benefitted Morinaga. The more severe the victims’ disabilities were, the less Morinaga's expenditure. As for victims’ groups, they seemed to be grateful to Morinaga for the payment.

It has been more than 30 years since my father was expelled. During this time, they appear to have been educated in internal study groups to believe that Morinaga’s profit made it possible for them to receive payment. They developed "study pamphlets" for the victims who had lost mobility to study. The amount of rake-off fund was incredulous. Hundreds of millions, no, billions of yen have gone somewhere. Somebody hinted this to the Cabinet Office, and they just said, "Oh ok.”

I have kept thinking this was a discriminatory policy, and then they wrote this in an official document. Someone filed a lawsuit saying that 100,000 yen was too low. Then a victims' group argued, "Victims who can work are working hard. They struggle with work. If the money is higher for victims who do not work, empathy cannot be gained".

Who are "victims who do not work?"　They are not able to work. They suffer quadriplegics, cerebral palsy, etc. "victims' groups” describe such people as "victims who do not work". What kind of sensibility do they have to assert this kind of idea in a court document?

Perhaps the judges couldn't believe their eyes. This is probably why the current victims' group was convicted. As a matter of fact, the victims' group was convicted in a libel trial (after the current victims' group had attacked a citizen, Eitaro Nose with slander and defamation. Mr. Nose had criticized the victims' group due to the suspicion regarding the victims’ relief and he filed a libel suit against the victims' group).

The plaintiffs in this case, in which the current victim organizations were sued, were indignant, stating that the plaintiffs were "victims who are not able to work", rather than "who do not work". The defendant victims' organization said, "We are not providing coverage, but welfare to victims." Their underlying message appears to say, "There are poor people out there, so you can't just make the victims alone rich." There are many other things they said (or wrote) that are hard to believe, but I thought this illustrates their mindset best, and I am sharing this episode with you. Furthermore, when the parents of the victims showed up at the general meeting, they were kicked out from it because their opinions did not align with the organization's policy, and this was also reported in the newspaper.

The victims' group stated that they requested participants to refrain from attending the meeting because of confusion many diverse opinions could cause. It is the parents of the severely injured victims who were excluded. It was appalling. And they demanded; "Submit your questions in advance”. They were censored. If they were caught in the censorship, their attendance was blocked. From this point on, they began using TV stations to increasingly promote propaganda.

１４． Recent Morinaga: Distorting Case History and Retaining Media on their Side

This is a "documentary" in around 2007 by Kansai Television (Kansai TV), which was notorious for "hoax". During the program they told a big fat lie.

For example, they shamelessly told a preposterous lie on TV about “guarantees for the victims", arguing that "Guarantee will be principally led by the government and Morinaga will pay for shortfalls after the provisions by the administration." Moreover, four different kinds of entities/people appeared on the show, including Morinaga Milk Industry and Kohei Nakabo, who was famous in those days and victims under the control of victims' organizations. Morinaga said, "The 14th-year visit came out of the blue," and what's more, they said, "there is a limit to the coverage for victims.” There is absolutely no legal basis for that. Moreover, they made the victims say, "Thank goodness I am lucky that powdered formula was the cause.” They said, "We are grateful to Morinaga for taking such good care of us. We are glad that the poisoning was caused by none other than Morinaga.” An interpreter translated the words of a person with a speech impediment who was in a wheelchair. The message was then played on a message board: Morinaga would not betray us. This documentary applied for the Galaxy Awards, which all Japanese TV stations enter for, and are known as the Academy Awards of Japanese television. Said documentary won the top prize. Audience’s comment was something like, "Oh, it made our eyes filled with tears. It was pitiful," but they did not care a bit about the content. The program council also said, "The victims made their appearance and said something, saying it was good. That must mean they let go of the grudges. It's a good story." They decided that they wanted to give an award for this program. So, I sent a letter of inquiry to the "Broadcasting Forum," the organization that gave the award. Their response was “No comment” and the reason for that was, "The video (of the program used for judging) was misplaced.” This reflects the reality of Japanese journalism. Of course, there are plenty of good documentaries that won the Galaxy Awards. But even a TV show like this won the award. That's why we feel their judging criteria is dubious. Moreover, in the trial held a little while ago, the defendant submitted a DVD (of this program) to the Okayama District Court and stated that it was "proof that the victims have been grateful to us (the defendant)”. His logic might be: "Since they are grateful to us, please pardon our suppression of their speech and defamation, and acquit us, Court.” But the defendant was found guilty.

There is a current propaganda in progress. This is a campaign involving a person associated with "Project X," which was heavily promoted by the late Kohei Nakabo and NHK in 1999, with this phrase: "The victims are grateful to Morinaga. They have been treated well."

Some of you may know Mr. Kohei Nakabo, who was nominated to be the next Prime Minister of Japan. His reputation was: “a man of justice!　Kohei Nakabo.”

The staff members involved in NHK's "Project X" did an hour-long nation-wide program and even published a book. It was published by NHK Publishing, but it is a book full of misinformation/disinformation. Approximately 10 more books followed suit on this subject. And the story sums up to ("Victims are grateful to the offending company"). They have distorted Japanese public's historical understanding of this case to a degree that we might never be able to reverse to perspectives based on the facts.

A citizen I mentioned earlier (Mr. Eitaro Nose) sent a letter of inquiry to NHK Publishing as well, and NHK Publishing acknowledged the obvious mistakes, but said, "If we do a reprint, we will correct it at that time”. I don't think it will be reprinted forever. And one more thing, Sanyo Shimbun Newspaper still praises; ”Dr. Eiji Hamamoto is a hero." In the meanwhile, Morinaga Milk Industry is also still saying, "The president has not known about the sequela because the management withheld the information. This strategy was also exercised by some sports organization recently. This is the logic of "evasion of responsibility" that Morinaga has developed before others: "The president did not know about it because everything was done by his employees. This is a typical example of laying the blame on the staff. This was also practiced by a major magazine.

What is most troubling is the fact that victims' group has issued a document (study pamphlet) that can be taken as Morinaga did not intentionally put poison in the formula and did not have malicious intentions. In parallel, they also tried to manipulate impressions. I consciously included this article because it is related to the 14th-year visit. A doctor from the Min-i-ren or the National Democratic Institute Federation suddenly appeared in the Sankei Shimbun in an 8-column article, saying that he was going to hold "a symposium on the 14th-year visit, which was wonderful”. When victims wanted to attend that symposium, however, they were excluded. To begin with, victims were not informed of the venue of the event. And yet, they gathered all the people involved in the "14th-year visit" to discuss press management. They say, "This demonstrates that we have inherited the history of the victims." Meanwhile, the victims who do speak out are saying. The current (victims') group is Morinaga's proxy. Morinaga wants us to die quickly."

１５． Persistent Victims' Suffering and Human Rights Violation

This is Mr. Eitaro Nose, a volunteer who filed the lawsuit. Victims asked him to help and he went out of his way to provide various support, when he was attacked, saying that he was an "outsider" thereby it was unacceptable for him to speak out about the case. （The current victims’ organization pointed their finger at him and accused him on the first page of their newsletter. Mr. Nose sued them for defamation, and he won the case. He has written a series of articles (about the injustice of the victims' organization and the "Relief Fund") in a citizens’ movement magazine called "Weekly Friday.

  Also, the parent of a victim shown on this (slide), who already passed away, complained that they even checked his background and distributed that information to the people concerned. This is an article from the newspaper.　(Another person) complained that when he tried to ask a question, he was pre-censored, monitored, and followed even to the restroom. It sounds like what secret police might do. Persons close to the victims shared their experience including these.

１６． Statements by Academics and stakeholders

Now let us look at other stakeholders. Dr. Hideyasu Aoyama of Okayama University School of Medicine also admitted that the situation at the time was foul. He commented about the permanent relief plan for the Morinaga Incident which he had participated in drafting; "Now all they do is nothing but throwing money around. There is no heart in it. The newspapers seem to boast about the permanent relief, but there is no substance to it.” This is Dr. Takako Nakajima who is a professor at Okayama University and has witnessed arsenic physically destroying cranial nerves. She said, "Japanese society has not learned at all about the extent of the sacrifices made in this case. This person is Mr. Masahiko Tanigawa, the president of a company in Okayama, a respectable person and a great manager. He was convinced that "victims should be able to go out into society and earn a livelihood," so he visited each victim individually and started an educational program to support their independence by creating classrooms. Professors from universities and faculties of education famous in the field of education for children with disabilities came to see the program, saying that it was pioneering. But someone must have persuaded that it would be too expensive to run, and the program was shut down after only one year.He was furious about the situation at that time and said, "They assert that they provide relief to victims. But when their parents die and their siblings die, victims are sent to institutions. Is that what you call relief?” Mr. Tanigawa is still in good shape; he is over 80 years old.

１７． The government not yet recognizes the food incidents as pollution.

In my summary, I would like to say that the victim is killed three times. First, victims are killed by arsenic poisoning, then by sequelae. And even now, they continue to be killed. It is not a matter of life or death., but their dignity as a human is continually violated.

It is true that victims receive payment for their medical expenses, but it only amounts to 10,000 to 40,000 yen a month. And it is unthinkable that they need to feel obligated to be grateful to Morinaga. To make this ugly picture even more ugly, the victims have been told that they had to be appreciative, and some urged victims to launch a sales promotion campaign for Morinaga’s products in the official magazine. The victims’ sentiments have been completely shattered.

１８． It stemmed from the state's abdication of responsibility

The background details is a key to understand how it all unfolded itself in this way.

Frankly, although the Morinaga case is widely considered as food pollution, the government has not recognized it as pollution. Only air and water are recognized as pollution. The government demands the company responsible for food pollution deal with it at its own expense. No matter how many people die as a result of it, the government thinks that it is none of their business. Therefore, Kanemi Oil Poisoning Syndrome has won only a meager guarantee because Kanemi Warehouse did not have money. The people of Japan are not aware of this. The next time and every time it happens, it will inevitably be a problem. (Due to the poor government policy this bizarre perception, "Thanks to Morinaga's prosperity, the victims are fortunate to get money," is being imposed on the victims. Taking the advantage of it, the obsession is instilled in the minds of victims that they will not be able to receive the benefits of the guarantee if Morinaga is underperforming. The victims are mentally managed and controlled: it is a kind of mind control.)

In addition, online articles in the Sanyo Shimbun still discuss that Eiji Hamamoto is a hero. A scholar who is researching pollution realized that Eiji Hamamoto is described as a hero in Okayama, then recently he asked, “Is he on Morinaga's side or the victims' side?” It is amazing, isn't it? Thanks to Eiji Hamamoto, the damage has subsided...?　It's absurd.

Morinaga is still a going concern. The cabinet is also known as the Morinaga Style. Mrs. Abe is the daughter of a former president of Morinaga Seika, and she worked for Dentsu when she was young. The government composition seems to be a mirror image of that of the Morinaga Incident and use the government for their personal benefit. Morinaga's capital has now increased to 21.7 billion yen from 750 million yen. The incident of such magnitude, even in the U.S., would lead the company to bankruptcy. Morinaga, however, continues to grow. And even now, they have not been remorseful for the incident.

(Morinaga does not repent of the incident but is able to grow. In fact, Morinaga is able to provide about 1 billion yen a year, have its executives rake off about half of that money, and have victims' groups praise Morinaga at the same time. They can get them to do whatever they want, and they can use the victims' groups as billboards for their own advertising.

  But Morinaga has no right to use the power of money for injury to human dignity in this way.

The Morinaga case is the manifestation of evil deed.

①The above anecdote is a problem that has already been warned about in the United Nations University Press book I have already mentioned.  The fears I had at the time of its publication in 1985 have become a reality, resulting in not only a setback in relief efforts but also widespread suppression of speech and human rights violations against the victims, and even praise for the perpetrator company, Morinaga.

② The "Morinaga Accusation," a group of free citizens, knew from the beginning that Morinaga was already deeply colluded with the state agencies and would ignore any scientific report that was published. Food pollution may be a media term. The Japanese government has never and still does not recognize food incidents as "pollution" and does not fully fulfill its "state responsibility”. The government does not take responsibility for its total complicity in corporate crime. Even when the government could no longer cover up its own crimes, it turned a blind eye and said, "Talk to the company that caused it”. It left everything up to the two parties.

Citizens and scientists launched a nationwide "campaign for the total non-buying of Morinaga products" as well as an epidemiological study to fight Morinaga's management. The book series "Arsenic Baby Milk" was published to support this campaign. The books refuted the mental makeup of Morinaga and the national government, which remains unchanged to this day.

 “Arsenic Baby Milk" series 1.2.3 are available for free download from the archives of the museum's website. This is the minimum required reading on the Morinaga arsenic milk poisoning case, the first postwar and the largest food pollution in world history.

The citizens were right in their judgment. The company's own executives proved by their own words and actions that Morinaga is a company that will continue to be in the dark about breaking up victims as long as it exists.

Even after the year 2000, the company has kept itself busy disseminating disinformation about its history, and since 2012, it has openly promoted the appointment of pro-Morinaga media representatives to its ranks. Behind this lies the national government's unchanged irresponsibility beguiling all massive corporate crimes into the "conflict between the perpetrator and the victims”. This endorses the company’s strategies and continues and encourages the trivialization of the case history by holding the life of the victims hostage to the perpetrator. The company uses the political forces who take bribes, offerings and money by the company as proxies. It undermines the position of the negotiating parties and justify “unfavorable changes" by accumulating "tripartite agreement" (with the subsequent State's approval), thereby reducing future costs. Some media outlets are cooperating in this effort. The situation is going back to how it was in 1955.

This rampant irresponsibility and money worship, compounded by the complicity of even partisan forces touting "innovation," has in fact paved a way to the Fukushima catastrophe and is accelerating a path to a next tragedy.

１９． The basic method of victim control is "discrimination.

And at the base (of achieving such unjust victim control) is discrimination!

Discrimination involved not only that against people with disabilities, but also establishing pecking order of various people. As I mentioned earlier, victims' groups unrelentingly wrote that "100,000 yen appeared to be a bit too much for victims who don't work”. They turned themselves into the state power itself. Discriminators do not discriminate to make petty sums of money. The structure of discrimination is to "assign a person who is a cog in the wheel and willing to obey to the top of the organization. (Domination is achieved by top-down control by forcing submission, and discrimination is the principal mechanism that creates the chain of bowing down.)

This is what bureaucrats do at a normal time. Bureaucracies are automatic machines. They do what they are told without thinking. There is no thinking involved. Without thinking, they can ultimately do anything, no matter how bad it is. That is an engine for totalitarianism. This bureaucracy develops more or less into totalitarianism. What makes up totalitarianism is a doctrinal structure that says, "We who know the destiny of the world will lead you”. That worked for Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, and so on.

And (relatedly), another engine for state power and totalitarianism is a "singularity of identity" in which individuals are lost. What this means is that when human beings are imbued with a sense of belonging to a single "closed identity," such as "you are the working class," "you are an employee of Morinaga Milk Industry," or "you are a member of the school," they all lose ability to think.

It seems that when a group of victims is dominated by the "singularity of identity" that says, "You are a member of ________, so you must follow the controls," there is no room for common sense to work even among the group of victims. The personal attack on Eitaro Nose, whom I have already mentioned, is another clear example. He is the author of a book that promoted public understanding of the case and the editor of "The 20-Year History of the Morinaga Arsenic Milk Struggle”. He is a key citizen who used to be a dedicated supporter of the parents' movement when the victims were children. In the beginning of 2000, several parents of the victims pleaded him to advocate for the relief of the victims. The current victim's group wrote in their newsletter that he was an "outsider" and that they would not allow such an "outsider" to talk about the case. This odd behavior shows that those at the top of the victims' group are more afraid of the "awareness" of the victims than anything else. The victims have gained the support of the overwhelming majority of the public, but when it comes time for the money to be paid out, they have a bizarre, closed-minded, and self-righteous ideology that "does not allow criticism from third parties other than the victims. This is the "identity singularity trap" that creates the victim's ego, and it is also the ancient primitive political method of dictatorial rule by organizing all interested parties with only yes-men. This is also the unchanging will of Morinaga and its corrupt power, which fear collaboration between victims and the general public more than anything else, and has continued to divide and sabotage them).

Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jewish philosopher, said that the ideological root of totalitarianism lies there. When people are taught that "I am what I am and not what I am not," that is, for instance, "I am a Japanese citizen and not an American citizen," then they can wage war on the United States in the end.

It works in a variety of ways. For example, "I am a Japanese citizen, but I am not a member of the neighborhood association, and therefore I don't care about the community," or "I am a man in the first place". (As a citizen, discrimination against women is unacceptable, but if you prioritize your narrow identity as a man, you can subordinate and dwarf the rights of women who are also citizens.) The structure of power (not only in the government, but also in the minds of those who follow the power and cogs of accelerating machines) is doing that thought manipulation every day.

The point Hannah Arendt wanted to make was: “Ordinary people who stop thinking do the ultimate evil. And just because what was done was a great evil, it does not mean that it was done by an out-of-the ordinary person. You, too, could potentially be engaged in great evil.” She warns.

There was once a Nazi trial called the Eichmann Trial. Eichmann was the Nazi operative responsible for organizing the transportation of Jews to various concentration camps where the Nazis eliminated 6 million Jews. Hannah was living in the U.S. at the time and flew to Israel to sit in and watch this Eichmann trial. After observing Eichmann up close, she described him as just an ordinary man, a type you would find in a neighborhood. She expressed "the banality of evil."

Hannah Arendt was thereby bombarded with criticism from the Jewish community. The Jewish community at the time was outraged. "Don't say he is an ordinary old man. He is an extraordinary evil man." Arendt replied, "No, no, he is an ordinary old man, no one is an exception," she provoked the anger of the Jewish nation.

But she did not change her beliefs. She further said, "Jews must not forget the history of the Jews themselves, who themselves helped the Nazis persecute the Jews." And when she said this, she was persecuted even more. In short, we must not fall into a trap of the singularity of the identity with perceptions that we must sanctify the Jews as victims and exclude them from the object of criticism. (We must not allow anything to lead to criticism of the "victimized" Jewish community.)"

Arendt said, "That's not right," and she said it head on.

This is why Hannah Arendt is so highly regarded today. I also happened to read her writings about 10 years ago, and I felt that her words were also very true and relevant to this case.

  I am not trying to rely on Arendt to convince you, but I wanted to introduce her to you.

２０．To live according to your conscience

What I want to emphasize today is that we follow the conscience. There are many battles that cannot be fought. There are many battles that you may lose, and there are many battles that you have no chance of winning. But humans can discern. Your gut feeling knows, "After all, this is not right”. This is the "free will of the humanity. I believe that "freedom" is not only "the power of doing something." "Thinking" is a prerequisite for freedom. Therefore, when you feel "It's not right”, knowing whether you can win or lose if you fight it" is secondary. I believe that Japan will be finished if we no longer have this spirit of "fight against something wrong even if there is little chance of winning. If this is lost, I believe that war might occur. This is our own problem.

However, freedom has its origin in spontaneity. It is important to think while having fun, rather than forcing ourselves to think. Otherwise, it cannot be continued.

The last message from my late father, which he wrote on the back cover of his own book, gives insight on life. This is a phrase that I also ruminate over on a daily basis. His words are: "Life is one serious experiment in the search for freedom and light.　

"We only live once and live according to our conscience." This is the freedom in the human life. My father seemed to have learnt this lesson through his war experience.

With these words I would like to conclude my speech. I thank you very much.