One of the most shocking afflictions I researched before traveling to Japan was Itai-Itai disease. The horrors those afflicted with Itai-Itai disease were put on full display at the Itai-Itai Disease Museum in Toyama Prefecture.

Despite a full day of lugging around a duffle bag that has been slowly falling apart, the surrounding nature around the Itai-Itai Museum was impossible to ignore.

The Toyama Prefecture’s connection to nature and farming was made clear since we arrived. Rice farms were placed everywhere, from next to roads to right by houses and some even near the city. The sheer number of rice farms in the area made learning about Itai-Itai disease all the more heartbreaking.

Itai-Itai Disease Museum

One of the four significant pollution-related diseases Itai-Itai disease spread among the people living off of the Jinzugawa River in the Toyama Prefecture. Itai-Itai Disease was caused by the cadmium release from the Kamioka Mine situated on the river contaminating the surrounding water. The polluted water was then used by the farmer’s in the area, causing many to consume dangerous levels of cadmium.

At the Museum, we took a small tour that shined greater light on the struggles those afflicted with Itai-Itai and their families underwent. We listened to reenactments using models of the region and examined charts and pictures related to the range of those affected, the complications those suffering from the disease had to endure, and how the Japanese government and people responded to the disease. One of the most particularly hard-hitting parts of the Museum was the effects cadmium poisoning had on the body. Seeing the video of people hunched over, barely able to move, in immense pain was terrifying and heartbreaking. Cadmium poisoning lowers bone density causing the risk of fractures and breaks to be extremely high. The Museum had set up two fake bones, one to replicate the bones of an Itai-Itai patient and the other to replicate a healthy bone. Guests were welcomed to pick them up and compare and contrast the weight. The Itai-Itai bone was notably lighter, more fragile than the average healthy human bone.

An often-ignored part of Itai-Itai disease is how the affliction affected the families of those with the disease. Itai-Itai Museum exposed me to this whole new side of the illness through stories and videos. Women stopped coming to the area to get married afraid of catching the disease that was spreading in the area, and many families were financially crippled having to take constant care of a family member and pay for medical fees. It was the citizens affected by the Cadmium poisoning that drew up the three contracts to get reparations for the damage done to their farms, land, and loved ones.

The pain the people felt in the area was made all the clearer when we sat down to listen to a guest storyteller whose step-grandmother was affected by Itai-Itai disease. Couldn’t help but feel worried as she told the story of her described the pain her step-grandmother would experience. They had to take care of her every day, feed her, bathe her, all as she watched her relative cry “itai, itai” or it hurts, it hurts.

Diseases like Itai-Itai are clear examples of the need to protect our environment from pollution, not only to protect plants and wildlife but also to protect human life. As mentioned previously, Itai-Itai disease is one of four significant pollution-related diseases that affected Japan. Unfortunately, we continue to see the harmful effects of unregulated factories negative impact on health all over the world. Just in the United States, we see factory smoke causing higher rates of asthma in surrounding neighborhoods, to harmful algae blooms supplemented with organic waste. To maintain public health, it is vital to understand cases like Itai-Itai and how to prevent diseases that arise from harmful factory practices from rising again.