TOKYO —

The problems facing people suffering from fetal Minamata disease remain unresolved more than 50 years after the mercury-poisoning disorder was officially detected in 1956, a researcher of the disease said Sunday. ‘‘While sensory impairment is one of the criteria for official recognition as a Minamata disease patient, it is difficult for sufferers who have entered their 50s to prove the symptom, although they exhibit higher brain dysfunction apparently caused by mercury,’’ said Masazumi Harada, professor at Kumamoto Gakuen University.
   
‘‘One of the biggest challenges for the future is how to deal with such fetal sufferers,’’ Harada, a neuropsychiatrist who heads the university’s Open Research Center for Minamata Studies, told a Tokyo symposium on the Minamata issue. For the past half-century, Harada has been involved as a physician in tackling the disease, caused by contamination of Minamata Bay by mercury-laced wastewater from the synthetic resin factory of Chisso Corp in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture.

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