2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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created_at: '2016-07-11T08:33:29.000Z'
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title: The Spanish cooking oil scandal (2001)
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url: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/25/research.highereducation
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author: mafro
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points: 111
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 65
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1468226009
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_mafro
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- story_12069662
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objectID: '12069662'
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2018-06-08 12:05:27 +00:00
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year: 2001
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2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Twenty years ago, 1,000 people died in an epidemic that spread across
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Spain. Poisoned cooking oil was blamed - an explanation that suited
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government and giant chemical corporations. It was, argues Bob
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Woffinden, who investigated the scandal in the 80s, the prototype
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scientific fraud that has found echoes around the world
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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In the days before "do-gooders" became a term of disapproval, doctors
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and scientists were held in absolute public esteem. They did the most
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good; they were working altruistically to benefit the human race - to
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cure illness, prevent disease and create a safer, healthier future for
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us all. That, at least, used to be the popular perception. Plainly, the
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image has become more than a little tarnished. Even before the scandal
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of the deaths of babies at Bristol Royal Infirmary, enough instances of
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incompetence and negligence had emerged to provoke widespread public
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scepticism about the professions. These days, scientists are more likely
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to find themselves occupying the lower rungs on the ladder of public
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trust, alongside estate agents and, well, journalists.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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It is also increasingly understood that scientific research is now
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hardly ever conducted in a spirit of disinterested inquiry. Usually, it
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is funded by global companies whose concerns are anything but
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disinterested. Even when research is financed by government agencies,
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those, too, will want to call the tune. According to a survey carried
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out last year by the scientific body, the Institute of Professionals,
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Managers and Specialists, one in three scientists working for government
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quangos or newly privatised laboratories has been asked to adjust
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conclusions to suit the sponsor.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Leaving aside the implication of this for forensic science, it is
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evident that most scientific inquiry today is dictated not by the thirst
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for knowledge but by the thirst for profits. Even so, the full extent of
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the betrayal of the public interest has yet to be appreciated.
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Internationally, the scientific community has been responsible for
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serious errors, which have then been covered up with devastating
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consequences for public health. There was no proper treatment available
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for victims, as their condition was undiagnosed; and the same mistakes
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were repeated elsewhere.
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Twenty years ago, the Spanish "cooking oil" disaster began as a mystery
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illness. Years later, the toll was put at more than 1,000 deaths and
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more than 25,000 seriously injured, many of whom were permanently
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disabled. It was the most devastating food poisoning in modern European
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history.
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The disaster is historically important not just because of its scale and
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the number of victims. It was the prototype contemporary scientific
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fraud. It marked the first time that multinational interests
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successfully contrived a major cover-up in international science. For
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the one thing that is certain about the Spanish "cooking oil" disaster
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is that it had nothing to do with cooking oil.
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The epidemic is officially deemed to have started on May 1 1981, when an
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eight-year-old boy, Jaime Vaquero Garcia, suddenly fell ill and died in
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his mother's arms on the way to La Paz children's hospital in Madrid.
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Learning that his five brothers and sisters were also ill, doctors had
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them all brought in and put one of the girls into intensive care. The
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other four children were transferred to the Hospital del Rey, Madrid's
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prestigious clinic for infectious diseases, where doctors began treating
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them for "atypical pneumonia".
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When the director, Dr Antonio Muro y Fernandez-Cavada, arrived at work
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the following morning, he was alarmed to be told that these new patients
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were being treated for pneumonia. He gave his staff a dressing-down; it
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was out of the question medically for six members of a family to be
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suffering the same symptoms of pneumonia at the same time.
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The Vaquero family proved merely the first of many. It seemed to be
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mainly women and children who were affected. The initial symptoms were
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flu-like: fever and breathing difficulties, vomiting and nausea,
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although patients soon developed a pulmonary oedema (the build-up of
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fluid in the lungs), skin rashes and muscle pain. The epidemic was
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national news.
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After a few days, Muro told the media that he believed it was due to
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food poisoning, adding that the foodstuff was marketed "via an
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alternative route". He was certain of this because the casualties were
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all coming from the apartment blocks of the communities and towns
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surrounding the capital; almost no one from Madrid itself appeared to be
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affected.
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Muro brought together relatives of those afflicted with the mystery
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illness and told them to work out exactly what the victims may have
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eaten that they, the unaffected family members, may not have eaten. In
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half an hour, they had an answer: salads.
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On May 12, Dr Angel Peralta, the head of the endocrinology department at
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La Paz hospital, pointed out in a newspaper article that the symptoms of
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the illness were best explained by "poisoning by organo-phosphates". The
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following day, he received a telephone call from the health ministry,
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ordering him to say nothing about the epidemic, and certainly nothing
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about organo-phosphorous poisoning.
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That same day, Muro invited health ministry officials to the Hospital
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del Rey. He produced maps of the localities, showing where the patients
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lived. He believed that the contaminated foodstuff was being sold at the
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local weekly street markets, the mercadillos, which set up in different
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towns on different days. On this basis, he predicted where the illness
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would strike next. He was proved right, but this was scant consolation
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for the fact that he was suddenly informed that he was relieved of his
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duties as hospital director, with immediate effect. His dismissal at
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least enabled him to carry out his own first-hand investigations. He
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patrolled the mercadillos and noticed the popularity and cheapness of
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large, unlabelled plastic containers of cooking oil. Immediately, he and
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his colleagues, one of whom was Dr Vicente Granero More, went to the
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houses of affected families and removed the containers of oil that they
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had been using when they fell ill. They carefully labelled them, sent
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samples of each to the government's main laboratory at Majadahonda, just
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outside Madrid, and awaited the results.
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Most medical personnel were simply trying to tend the sick and dying - a
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difficult enough task in optimum conditions, but one made almost
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impossible because doctors, not knowing the cause of the illness, had no
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idea how to treat patients. Further, as the illness reached its chronic
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stage, the symptoms became more severe, and included weight loss,
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myalgia, alopecia (hair loss), muscle atrophy and limb deformity.
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At all administrative levels, there was bewilderment and anxiety. Spain
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was then still a fledgling democracy; the dictator, General Franco, had
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died as recently as 1975. In February 1981, only three months prior to
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the outbreak, a lieutenant-colonel, Antonio Tejero, had held MPs in the
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cortes (parliament) at gunpoint in a botched attempt to restore army
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rule. More than a month after the epidemic first struck, most of those
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in power had no strategy other than to hope something would turn up.
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Finally, it did. Dr Juan Tabuenca Oliver, director of the Hospital
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Infantil de Niño Jesus, told the government that he'd found the cause of
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the epidemic. He'd asked 210 of the children in his care, and they'd all
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consumed cooking oil.
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A fter, it seems, some initial hesitation, the government accepted his
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theory. On June 10, an official announcement was made on late-night
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television, informing the public that the epidemic was caused by
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contaminated cooking oil. Almost immediately, the panic subsided. The
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hospitals remained full of victims, but new admissions dropped sharply.
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The situation seemed, at least, under control.
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Yet the government's announcement had been watched with stunned
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disbelief by Muro and his colleagues. Only the previous day, on June 9,
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they had obtained the results of the tests on their own, precise oil
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samples. These showed that, although none was the pure olive oil that
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the vendor had no doubt claimed it to be, almost all the oils had
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different constituents. Such a variety of oils obviously could not
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account for one specific illness.
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The cooking oil theory was superficially persuasive. To protect its
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native olive oil industry, the Spanish government tried to prevent
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imports of the much cheaper rapeseed oil, then being put to widespread
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use throughout the European Community (which Spain did not join until
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1986). Imports of rapeseed oil were allowed only for industrial use; the
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oil first had to be made inedible through the addition of aniline.
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Streetwise entrepreneurs simply imported the cheaper oil anyway. The
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more scrupulous among them then removed the aniline; the others didn't
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bother. The illness was therefore attributed to aniline poisoning. It
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became colloquially known as la colza (which is Spanish for "rapeseed").
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A number of the more high-profile oil merchants were arrested.
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Three weeks after the television announcement, the health ministry
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allowed families to hand in their supposedly contaminated oil and
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replaced it with pure olive oil. This belated exchange programme was
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hopelessly mishandled, with few authentic records kept of who was
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exchanging what or (and this should have been the key point) whether the
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oil came from affected or unaffected households. As olive oil was
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guaranteed in return, many people simply handed in any oil they could
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find, even motor oil. Most of the oil that supposedly caused the
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epidemic was never available for subsequent scientific analysis. The
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instinctive reaction of most families, upon hearing that it was to blame
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for the illness, had simply been to throw it away.
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In order to demonstrate that the oil had caused the illness, government
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scientists needed to be able to show, for example, that families who had
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bought the oil were affected, whereas those who hadn't were not; that
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the aniline in the oil was indeed poisonous and that the victims were
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suffering from aniline poisoning; and, bearing in mind that such
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commercial cooking oil fraud had been widespread for years, just what
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had changed in the manufacturing process to cause the oil suddenly to
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become so poisonous. To this day, none of these basic conditions has
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been met.
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In 1983, however, an international conference was convened in Madrid
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under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Despite the
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reservations of many scientists present, the epidemic was then
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officially named toxic oil syndrome (TOS). In 1985, the opinion of the
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internationally respected British epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll was
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sought. He was cautious, saying, "If it could be shown that even one
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person who developed the disease could not have had exposure to \[the
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oil\], that would provide good grounds for exculpating the oil
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altogether."
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The trial of the oil merchants began in March 1987. Four months later,
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Doll, just before giving his evidence, announced that, on the basis of
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fresh epidemiological reports given to him, he now believed that the oil
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was the cause of the outbreak.
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At the end of the two-year trial in 1989, the judges themselves stressed
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that the toxin in the oil was "still unknown". This somewhat fundamental
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difficulty did not prevent them from handing down long prison terms to
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the oil merchants, who were convicted, in effect, of causing the
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epidemic.
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After years of one-track media reports, the notion of the "cooking oil"
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epidemic was firmly lodged in the public consciousness. It was
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unquestioned fact. No one doubted the official scientific conclusions,
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especially as they were accepted by the WHO.
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After the 1983 Madrid conference, when there was still widespread unease
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with the oil theory, the Spanish government recruited some of the
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country's leading epidemiologists to head a fresh commission of inquiry.
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Among those chosen were Dr Javier Martinez Ruiz and Dr Maria Clavera
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Ortiz, a husband-and-wife team from Barcelona. "We absolutely believed
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the oil was to blame," they said. "We thought the only problem was that
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the information was disorganised and the research inadequate."
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So they set about a rigorous examination of the official information.
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The results shocked them. Martinez looked at the pattern of admissions
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to hospitals and realised that the epidemic had peaked at the end of
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May. The incidence curve went down at least 10 days before the
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government's June 10 broadcast, and about a month before the withdrawal
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of the oil. In fact, the announcement that oil was to blame had had no
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effect on the course of the epidemic.
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Meanwhile, his wife had examined the patterns of distribution of the
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suspect oil, which had come across the border from France. She realised
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that vast quantities of the oil were sold in regions (notably Catalonia)
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where there had not been a single case of illness. And they subsequently
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learned that the government was already fully aware of this. At the time
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of the epidemic, the government had created a new post of secretary of
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state for consumer affairs at cabinet level. Chosen for this appointment
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was a rising lawyer and economist, Enrique Martinez de Genique.
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Genique himself had drawn up maps of the distribution of the oil and the
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pattern of illness. He realised that there was no correlation between
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the two and, accordingly, that the oil was not the cause of the
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epidemic. After presenting his findings to the health ministry, he was
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sacked from his government post, and soon decided to retire from
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politics altogether. He emphasised that he had never regretted what he
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did: "I had very grave doubts \[about the government's stance on the
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epidemic\] and I was morally and ethically obliged to voice them."
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Martinez and Clavera, too, were fired. As this did not entirely prevent
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the possibility of the commission reaching inconvenient conclusions, it
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was soon closed down altogether.
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The powerful, indeed irrefutable, evidence that the suspect oil was sold
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throughout parts of Spain where not a single case of illness resulted
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could be coupled with equally clear evidence of the converse: of people
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who could not have been exposed to the oil falling victim to the
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epidemic.
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While making a television documentary, I saw many families who had
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suffered illness yet were adamant that they had never purchased the oil.
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One woman used only supplies from the olive groves of her relatives in
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Andalusia, yet she was seriously disabled by the illness. Perhaps the
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best authenticated example was the case of Maria Concepcion Navarro, a
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young lawyer in Madrid who fell ill, became progressively worse and died
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in August 1982. Her symptoms were exactly the same as those of other
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fatalities of la colza and she was put on the official roll of TOS
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victims - despite the fact that her husband, also a lawyer, stressed
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that they had only ever used the most reputable cooking oils. Then the
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authorities belatedly noticed another significant contradiction. Maria
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Concepcion had actually been hospitalised from November 1979, 18 months
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before the start of la colza. She didn't fit the official theory;
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consequently, her name was struck off the list of victims.
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On a broader scale, this was how the statistics of the epidemic were
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compiled. If victims - afectados - or their families agreed that they
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had used the oil, their names were added to the official list; if they
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asserted that they had never had the oil, their names were excluded.
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However, the health ministry had made it known that only those whose
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names appeared on the official list would qualify for government
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compensation, so there was a clear incentive for afectados to say that
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they had used the oil. Developments like this artificially buttressed
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the government's position and made it almost impossible to produce an
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accurate assessment of the epidemic.
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T hrough all the obfuscation, one man had simply ignored the official
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lines of inquiry and spent months pursuing his own. Having eliminated
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the cooking oil, Muro and his colleagues turned their attention to other
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salad products. Speaking to market stallholders, lorry drivers and
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around 4,000-5,000 affected families, they concluded that, without any
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doubt, the contaminated foodstuff was tomatoes, and it was the
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pesticides on them that were responsible for the epidemic. The
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organo-phosphorous chemicals would indeed cause the range of symptoms
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observed by clinicians.
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The tomatoes, they established, had come from Almeria, in the south-east
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corner of Spain. Once a desert area, this was not fit for crop-growing
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until the discovery of underground water in the 1970s helped to
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transform it into an agricultural success story. Fruit and vegetables
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were forced into rapid growth under long tunnels of plastic sheeting.
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Some farmers got three, or even four, crops a year.
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This agricultural boom was made possible only through the application of
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copious quantities of chemicals: nutrients, fertilisers and pesticides.
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Although exactly what happened may never be known, it is likely that one
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farmer had used the chemicals too liberally, or had harvested the crop
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too quickly after applying them. Neither would have been surprising.
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Some of the farmers were illiterate and would have had difficulty with
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the instructions for use on the containers of chemicals.
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Muro had many supporters but, as the official view became more and more
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entrenched, so he was marginalised as the one dissident voice. In 1985,
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he died suddenly of a mysterious illness. His wife perceived the whole
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saga as an unmitigated family tragedy.
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It was Muro and his team who had done the on-the-ground epidemiology in
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the immediate wake of the outbreak. What, then, of the epidemiology that
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the WHO in 1992 was boldly to describe as "comprehensive and exacting
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epidemiological studies, subjected to critical independent assessment"?
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Muro's work was first-hand. But trying to assess the accuracy and
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validity of the official epidemiology was not easy. The FIS - the
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government agency responsible for toxic oil syndrome - refused to
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release details of the fieldwork carried out or any background
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information. However, the families described in the reports were given
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code numbers and these could be matched against the official list of
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victims which then became part of the trial documentation. Eventually we
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identified the families supposedly interviewed for the key
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epidemiological reports and went to see them.
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From these first-hand inquiries, we established that there was not a
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single case in which the family's history corresponded with what was
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written in the epidemiological reports. Sometimes the differences were
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slight; sometimes the reports bore no relation to what had actually
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happened. In one sense, this was not surprising; while some families did
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recall having been interviewed by officials at the time, others insisted
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that they were never questioned at all. The principal scientific premise
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- that evidence should be gathered and, on that basis, a conclusion
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reached - appeared to have been reversed: a conclusion had been reached,
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and then the evidence manipulated in order to support that conclusion.
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The original study on which the oil theory is founded, by Dr Juan
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Tabuenca Oliver, was published in the Lancet; yet it appears less than
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rigorous. At the outset, he claimed that all 210 of the children in his
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care had taken the oil. The next time that reference was made to this
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study, the number of children in his care was given as 60. Two years
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later, it had shot up again, to 345. Today, the figure is put at 62.
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Moreover, his claim that all of the children had consumed the oil was
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disputed at the trial. Pilar Pans Gonzalez, the mother of one of his
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patients, was asked if her son had had the oil. She replied that he had
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not. Asked how she could explain this discrepancy (with the supposed
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100% finding), she replied, "That is their problem, something they have
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invented."
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There are three specific epidemiological reports on which the oil theory
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now rests. Two of these are particularly astonishing. The first concerns
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three cases of illness in two families in Seville. These three became
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ill, according to the official analysis, because the heads of the
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families worked at a refinery where some of the suspect oil had
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supposedly been refined, and took some for use at home.
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There are a number of glaring problems with this report. Most
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importantly, one of the families, on hearing the government's
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announcement about the illness, had taken their own oil to be analysed
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at the local Instituto de la Grasa, which happened to be one of the
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country's most renowned laboratories. The records of this analysis are
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still available; the oil was not rapeseed at all, it was olive oil.
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If the theory was correct, one might have expected other refinery
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workers to fall ill; no one did. However, there were originally,
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according to the government's own records, 83 cases of la colza in
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Seville. The other 80 vanished from the official records, presumably
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because they couldn't possibly fit the oil theory; after all, the
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suspect oil had never been sold in Andalusia, where authentic olive oil
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|
is in such plentiful supply.
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Even more amazing was the study concerning a convent outside Madrid.
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According to this, 42 out of 43 nuns fell ill after using the oil, while
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visitors whose food was prepared in a different oil did not fall ill.
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From an official perspective, the beauty of this epidemiology was not
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just that it provided game, set and match for the oil theory, but that
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no one could afterwards check the veracity of the paper. This was a
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closed convent. The nuns had no routine contact with members of the
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public, and they certainly didn't talk to the media. In the event,
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senior nuns from the convent did give evidence at the trial. Their
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testimony flatly contradicted what was written in the convent report. Of
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course, all the food was prepared in the same way and cooked in the same
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oil. In fact, only very few nuns (about eight or nine) suffered any
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illness. The epidemiological report was a fabrication.
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|
Nor was the oil theory underpinned by any laboratory science. In the
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|
years since the 1981 outbreak, the suspect oils have been analysed in
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|
leading laboratories throughout the world. No chemical, or contaminant,
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|
that would account for the symptoms observed in the afectados has ever
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|
been found. Aniline - which was blamed for the epidemic - is poisonous
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|
only in much greater quantities than were present in the oil and, in any
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|
case, the symptoms of aniline poisoning are quite different from those
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|
of the afectados. Laboratory tests proved that the oil was not harmful
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|
to animals. "All the animals thrived on the stuff," one researcher
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|
|
explained. "Their coats became glossier and they put on weight."
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|
|
Dr Gaston Vettorazzi was chief toxicologist at the WHO at the time of
|
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|
|
the outbreak, but had since retired. He told us, in the most gracious
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|
|
way, that if even a bunch of journalists with no scientific expertise
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|
|
could see through all this, then it must indeed be obvious. In other
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|
words, he didn't believe that this had occurred through a series of
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|
|
administrative errors; he believed that the truth had been deliberately
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|
concealed by Spanish officialdom. As he said, the rapeseed explanation
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|
|
of the illness was "predetermined. That was the official line of the
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|
so-called Spanish science. You cannot force an investigator to follow a
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|
line. If this is done, science is dead."
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|
For the various political and industrial concerns, there was substantial
|
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|
|
common interest in hiding the truth. For the multinational chemical
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|
|
companies, the revelation that a mass poisoning had occurred would have
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|
|
been scandalous and financially disastrous. At that stage,
|
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|
|
organo-chlorine (OC) pesticides were being phased out, to be replaced by
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|
|
organo-phosphates (OPs). The profits generated by the worldwide sales of
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|
OPs in the past 20 years have been vast. In those terms, suppressing the
|
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|
|
true cause of la colza was a commercial imperative. The Spanish
|
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|
|
administration had entirely congruent interests. With the attempted coup
|
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|
|
in parliament still fresh in the public mind, it was vital that
|
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|
|
ministers were seen to be in control. Democracy itself depended on the
|
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|
|
government being seen to deal capably with this national tragedy.
|
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|
Moreover, at that time, Almeria represented an economic miracle for
|
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|
|
Spain, providing produce that went to all parts of Europe. Had it been
|
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|
|
frankly acknowledged that all those deaths had been caused by pesticides
|
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|
|
on tomatoes, the effect on the entire Spanish export trade would have
|
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|
|
been incalculable.
|
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|
|
Nor was that the only economic repercussion. The news that such staple
|
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|
|
home-grown produce as tomatoes could be poisonous would have had a
|
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|
|
calamitous impact on Spain's other main generator of foreign income, the
|
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|
|
ever-growing tourist trade. On the other hand, spreading the fiction
|
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|
|
that the epidemic had been caused by cheap rapeseed oil sold in
|
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|
|
unlabelled containers at street markets to the Spanish working class in
|
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|
|
poorer areas of the country - that, of course, had no effect on tourism.
|
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|
|
The consequences of the cover-up were appalling. Many died
|
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|
|
unnecessarily. Thousands more, children among them, were left to endure
|
|
|
|
a lifetime of pain and physical impairment that perhaps could have been
|
|
|
|
avoided if they had received the care and treatment they needed as early
|
|
|
|
as possible. The Spanish colza is not just one of the great tragedies of
|
|
|
|
the last century, it is also one of the great scandals.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Years later, in 1989, a similar mystery illness was first diagnosed in
|
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|
|
New Mexico. Victims, 29 of whom died, fell ill with pneumonia-like
|
|
|
|
symptoms. Altogether, there were about 1,500 cases across the US. The
|
|
|
|
symptoms appeared identical to those suffered by the afectados in Spain;
|
|
|
|
yet no one in the US had had access to contaminated cooking oil.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is virtually certain that this outbreak, too, was caused by OP
|
|
|
|
pesticides. The scientific community - helpfully for their paymasters -
|
|
|
|
did not conclude that; the cause of the illness was attributed to an
|
|
|
|
innocuous amino acid supplement, L-Tryptophan, which had been taken
|
|
|
|
without problem by millions of Americans throughout the 1980s. (Its sale
|
|
|
|
is now banned in the US and Europe.) Just as with toxic oil syndrome,
|
|
|
|
funding was available for scientists who wished to pursue the official
|
|
|
|
line, but not for those who held different views. Nevertheless, no
|
|
|
|
component of L-Tryptophan has ever been found that would account for the
|
|
|
|
symptoms suffered by victims.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There have now been several issues about which there is a general
|
|
|
|
perception that the truth is not being allowed to surface. These
|
|
|
|
include, most obviously, the effects of OPs on farmers in Britain.
|
|
|
|
Despite what appears to be a mounting toll of death and debilitating
|
|
|
|
illness inflicted on the farming community, all official inquiries
|
|
|
|
somehow fail to establish a link between pesticide exposure and the
|
|
|
|
illness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The WHO, to its shame, continues to refer to the Spanish epidemic as the
|
|
|
|
"toxic oil syndrome". Every day around the world, students are no doubt
|
|
|
|
being taught that "cooking oil" was the cause of the disaster. Two books
|
|
|
|
on the cover-up have lately been published. One of these, Detras de la
|
|
|
|
colza, is by Granero, Muro's right-hand man; the other, published in
|
|
|
|
France, is Jacques Philipponneau's Relation de l'empoisonnement perpétré
|
|
|
|
en Espagne et camouflé sous le nom de syndrome de l'huile toxique - but
|
|
|
|
the worldwide deception continues, automatically recycled by a compliant
|
|
|
|
media.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The enduring feature of the TOS saga is that it provided a blueprint for
|
|
|
|
the international scientific community. If even a theory as palpably
|
|
|
|
bogus as the "toxic oil" syndrome can be sustained internationally, then
|
|
|
|
suppressing the truth must be remarkably straightforward. All it takes
|
|
|
|
is a series of epidemiological reports, accredited by scientists of a
|
|
|
|
similar persuasion, and then published in reputable scientific journals.
|
|
|
|
There are, as Disraeli might have said, lies, damned lies and
|
|
|
|
peer-reviewed scientific papers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Given increasing privacy constraints, the media can never independently
|
|
|
|
verify the data, and just have to report whatever they are told.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moreover, we could discover the truth about the Spanish epidemic for two
|
|
|
|
reasons: because the two-year trial ensured that otherwise unavailable
|
|
|
|
information reached the public domain (and the authorities haven't made
|
|
|
|
that mistake again); and because I was able, in 1990, to spend almost
|
|
|
|
three months in Spain researching and filming the epidemic. A decade
|
|
|
|
later, it is now inconceivable that journalistic investigations on such
|
|
|
|
a scale would be supported. In future, without even the remote
|
|
|
|
possibility of a bunch of journalists turning up years later to ask
|
|
|
|
inconvenient questions, it will be even easier for international science
|
|
|
|
to organise its cover-ups.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
An internal German government memo was recently leaked to Der Spiegel.
|
|
|
|
According to this, the monitoring of imported produce had revealed that
|
|
|
|
there continued to be unsafe pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables
|
|
|
|
from Spain. Some peppers were "highly contaminated" and the residues had
|
|
|
|
"reached levels we can no longer tolerate". It was the last line of the
|
|
|
|
memo that was most telling: "Under no circumstances should the general
|
|
|
|
public be informed."
|