<p>In Bangladesh, with the exception of mountainous regions, arsenic in excess of the acceptable level for drinking water has been detected in tubewell water from across the majority of the country, creating a national environmental problem. It has been estimated that 30-40 million of the country’s population of 120 million people are drinking dangerous well water, and there is grave concern over a rapid increase in the number of people affected. There is therefore an urgent need to secure alternative drinking water. The Asia Arsenic Network (AAN), a non-government organization having its headquarters in Miyazaki prefecture, Japan, has been cooperating to solve this problem.</p><p>Arsenious acid, which is used as a raw material for agricultural chemicals and poisonous gas, first began to be produced by calcinating arsenopyrite at the Toroku mine in Miyazaki prefecture in 1920. Starting around that same time, numerous strange events began occurring in the area around the mine, including the appearance of dead fish, the disappearance of honeybees, mushrooms failing to germinate, poor growth of rice plants and numerous cattle deaths. Eventually, diseases began to spread among the local residents that attacked the skin, eyes, respiratory tract and liver. Physicians, however, refused to even mention the possible cause of the diseases, and this incident ended up being lost in the pages of history. Only after the following rapid economic growth and the Japanese archipelago became subjected to serious environmental pollution did people begin to look back at the incident that occurred in Toroku.</p><p>When a civil suit was filed by patients against the mining company, a civic organization, referred to as a group for protecting the victims of the Toroku and Matsuo mine contamination, supported the court dispute. Following the reaching of an amicable settlement to the Toroku lawsuit in the supreme court in 1990, members of the above civic organization began to visit areas of arsenic contamination throughout Asia to convey their experiences in Japan. With this civic organization at its core, AAN was established in 1994 for the purpose of cooperating in the resolution of arsenic problems in Asia. A pilot area was established in Bangladesh in 1997, and survey teams were dispatched to the area on more than 20 occasions over the course of three years. These survey teams promoted surveys, research and countermeasures in a joint effort with local physicians and residents. The Dhaka office was opened in April 2000 to take advantage of the results obtained from these surveys, and a new project has just been undertaken.</p><p>The support for the overseas activities of AAN comes from the words of the elderly patients of Toroku and their commitment to trying to “help to those persons suffering from the same arsenic poisoning as ourselves”. AAN is proceeding with the implementation of grassroots international cooperation on the basis of establishing bonds between persons throughout Asia suffering from the same affliction.</p>