
The Spanish cooking oil scandal (2001) - mafro
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/25/research.highereducation
======
slr555
It is interesting that that within the last few days the NY Post has published
an article on the food supply that continues to promulgate this myth. The book
author they cite is also blaming olive oil for the tragedy in Spain. It is
unfortunate that even with better data available publishers continue to quote
myth as fact.

[http://nypost.com/2016/07/10/the-truth-behind-how-were-
scamm...](http://nypost.com/2016/07/10/the-truth-behind-how-were-scammed-into-
eating-phony-food/?contact-form-id=widget-text-4&contact-form-
sent=10277367&_wpnonce=bc86efccda#contact-form-widget-text-4)

------
jsvaughan
tldr: it wasn't the oil: "without any doubt, the contaminated foodstuff was
tomatoes, and it was the pesticides on them that were responsible for the
epidemic"

(This relates to the separate NYP post about phony food, which says "Fake
olive oil...has killed people...more than 20,000 people were poisoned in
Spain...")

~~~
cies
Just like that the symptoms supposedly caused by the "Zika virus" is more
likely to be a result from food by contaminated by pesticides/herbicides.

The last line of the article is most telling indeed:

> "Under no circumstances should the general public be informed."

This is the main problem. We would all be much more selective when it comes to
our food if we knew how flaky the quality is. But instead we trust the gov't
in controlling the food supply; which the quote shows we should not be doing.

~~~
jnbiche
> Just like that the symptoms supposedly caused by the "Zika virus" is more
> likely to be a result from food by contaminated by pesticides/herbicides.

You're making a claim here that pretty radically departs from scientific
consensus. Do you have any background information on where you read this/how
you determined this?

~~~
cies
Sure (sorry for not backing it up in the first place):

[http://thefreethoughtproject.com/doctors-groups-deny-
microce...](http://thefreethoughtproject.com/doctors-groups-deny-microcephaly-
zika-connection-blame-monsanto-linked-pesticide-birth-defects/)

Only days after a list of articles claiming no link with pesticides were
published, here a link to one of them:

[http://www.sciencealert.com/argentinian-report-says-
monsanto...](http://www.sciencealert.com/argentinian-report-says-monsanto-
linked-pesticide-is-to-blame-for-microcephaly-outbreak-not-zika)

I'm quite close to some people in academic virology and they also were not to
keen on calling for a Zika outbreak.

~~~
jnbiche
OK, you've implied or linked to some significantly different claims here:

1\. That there is no Zika outbreak / outbreak of Zika-like symptoms (this
seems irrefutably wrong and as far as I know even the typical conspiracy
theorist sites aren't claiming this much).

2\. That the symptoms of Zika are in fact caused by the organo-phosphate
pesticide Pyriproxyfen (Zika has been a recognized viral illness just like
others e.g. Dengue for at least 50 years, predating the widepread use of
organo-phosphates in Brazil, so this also is very, very unlikely).

3\. That the microencephaly in babies borne to mothers with Zika, that is
being attributed to the Zika virus, is in fact caused by Pyriproxyfen (for
epidemiological reasons [1], this seems very unlikely but it cannot be ruled
out at this point).

By the way, your second source didn't seem terribly bad, and assumed an
appropriate amount of skepticism toward the claims in question. Your first
source, written by an "political analyst" currently pursuing a global affairs
degree, and with no apparent scientific credentials, wasn't as convincing.

Are any of the academic virologists you're referring to on public record with
their skepticism about the Zika outbreak?

1\. In the three cities reporting the most cases — Recife, Jaboatao and
Paulista — pyriproxyfen is not in use, according to:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/18/46713891...](http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/18/467138913/did-
a-pesticide-cause-microcephaly-in-brazil-unlikely-say-experts).

~~~
cies
> outbreak of Zika-like symptoms

The symptoms are witnessed, sure. But are they caused by Zika; I think not.
Zika is around for a long time, and seems to be relatively harmless (as in: no
obvious symptoms). Therefor I do not speak of Zika-symptoms.

The sources are merely by Google'ing, I did not do proper background checks. I
did my own research on this some time ago and talked it though with a
virologist I know; she was surprised that I knew about the absense of link and
that they are also coming to that conclusion (though I do not know if her
department made an official statement on that).

~~~
summarite
Look, you're making utterly unsubstantiated claims based on your own
conjecture and some supposed virologist friend. No matter how smart and
educated you might believe yourself to be, you are just as ridiculously making
stuff up as eg climate deniers.

------
peterwwillis
I don't see any links whatsoever to hard evidence in the article. The only
thing close are a book and an article published in Spanish and French,
respectively, and seemingly no translation or availability in English
bookstores. Yet everyone in the comments here are accepting it as fact, almost
as readily as people accepted the tainted oil as fact.

It's funny how human heuristics prevent critical thinking, even after reading
an article about the lack of critical thinking.

One of the most obvious pieces of evidence this article could have included is
"The Spanish toxic oil syndrome 20 years after its onset: a multidisciplinary
review of scientific knowledge." [1]. In the abstract you will find the
following:

 _Attempts to reproduce the condition in laboratory animals have been
unsuccessful, and no condition similar to TOS has been reported in the
scientific literature._

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240833/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240833/)

~~~
maus42
Well, it's a newspaper article written by who would be a source, of sorts:

>The FIS - the government agency responsible for toxic oil syndrome - refused
to release details of the fieldwork carried out or any background information.
However, the families described in the reports were given code numbers and
these could be matched against the official list of victims which then became
part of the trial documentation. Eventually we identified the families
supposedly interviewed for the key epidemiological reports and went to see
them.

I'd be interested if they have any full detailed notes about interviews
published anywhere, other than the documentary.

------
argonaut
FWIW, it appears many of these concerns were known and brought up during the
original scandal 30 years ago:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/world/trial-in-spain-on-
to...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/world/trial-in-spain-on-toxic-
cooking-oil-ends-in-uproar.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/world/a-long-trial-in-
spai...](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/world/a-long-trial-in-spain-on-
fatal-tainted-food.html)

~~~
pella
"The epidemic is officially deemed to have started on May 1 1981"

~~~
argonaut
Yes, and? Obviously people continued to investigate in subsequent years.

------
Mahn
Note the last paragraph that suggests that this isn't just the 80s scandal,
but something that is on-going today as well:

> 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."

~~~
fuzzbucket
To be fair, the article was published in 2001.

~~~
waqf
If only we'd known back in 2001 that we were living in the bad old days when
governments were irresponsible! At the time, we thought the new, shiny future
had arrived!

Of course, we don't need to worry about this today, because the new, shiny
future has arrived.

------
Narretz
And yet, Wikipedia only has an article about "Toxic Oil Syndrome" that doesn't
mention at all that it might have been a cover-up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome)

~~~
oceanofsolaris
Actually, the last paragraph of the linked wikipedia article mentions the
organo-phosphate theory (it somewhat labels it as conspiracy-theory, but it
mentions it).

The talk page actually mentions a kind of rebuttal to the organo-phosphate
theory (which claims that the symptoms are not compatible with organo-
phosphate poisoning):

[http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/3/443](http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/3/443)

I can't really evaluate any of these claims since my expertise in this field
is non-existant. Things might be as simple as described in the Guardian
article (which portrays the organo-phosphate theory as self-evident but
suppressed truth), or maybe more complicated. The forced resignation of all
responsible researchers certainly smells very funny and the Spanish government
seems to have tried to suppress the truth or at least give the impression that
they were able to handle things by suppressing dissenting opinions.

------
avree
This was a linked article from a comment in this thread, which contains quite
a bit more discussion on the topic for those interested:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068983)

------
summarite
Very interesting article and sounds well researched and conclusive on the
toxic oil case. I'm not expert enough to draw any real conclusions or doubt
the evidence but it seems all rather sound. But his wholesale dismissal of
most of science as agenda driven is just absurd.

The US case... might be possible if it's to protect local industry, like the
whole fracking instanity. That being said, the line he draws from the Spanish
case to conclude without any actual evidence that the newer cases are the same
is spurious at best and just pure conjecture. I highly doubt that German
ministerial staff would avoid food warnings for a known polluted food. They
give such warnings or ban sales all the time and certainly wouldn't risk their
heads for some Spanish farmers. No link to the PDF or hint at the source makes
this sound like just a typical crackpot.

As the author said, the media is not always to be trusted and while scientists
might worry about funding, journalists certainly often have to make bold
claims and publish unverified theories to make a living.

------
plafl
I started to read the article but after reading some paragraphs it still
continues spreading mistrust about scientists. This is a very bad indicator in
my experience. I think there was some article about it here some time ago,
since we cannot attack the science we attack the scientists. I skimmed the
rest. I can believe in a government cover up, but I don't see the motivation.
The article says it was to cover that some pesticides were harmful, but if
that was the case the epidemic should have been more widespread. I don't see
also the Spanish government covering a foreign multi national by spreading
fear about oil in Spain. A link to the Der Spiegel article would have been
great. There are lots of vegetables produced in Spain, that some have too high
levels of pesticides is obvious, the question is how many but there is no
mention of it. To me the article smells like FUD.

~~~
Kadin
I started to read your comment, but stopped after the first sentence when you
made it clear you didn't read the article.

------
willvarfar
Are particular politicians implicated?

Why does no Spanish TV station do a documentary on this scandal? What is the
situation and dynamics of the 'free press' in Spain today?

~~~
nextos
I think you are wrong. This scandal is incredibly well-known in Spain.

It's gotten massive press coverage throughout the years. In fact, most people
that used to use cheap cooking oils switched to olive oil after the scandal.
(For those who are not familiar with the matter, the scandal involved using
chemicals on industrial-grade rapeseed oil to remove dyes and re-sell it to
consumers.)

~~~
douche
> switched to olive oil after the scandal

Do you actually have olive oil in your olive oil? In the U.S., most of the
olive oil for sale is either misgraded or adulterated[1]

[1] [http://time.com/money/4326354/fake-olive-oil-food-
fraud/](http://time.com/money/4326354/fake-olive-oil-food-fraud/)

~~~
zb
I was just in Spain, and was told that prior to the financial crisis much of
the olive oil produced in Italy and Greece was made from olives grown in
Spain. (Spain is a _massive_ producer of olives.) After the crisis they
stopped exporting olives and started bottling their own oil, which was the
cause of the shortage in supply of extra virgin oil from e.g. Italy that led
to organised crime getting into the fake olive oil business. So there's every
reason to think that Spain in particular is awash in genuine olive oil.

~~~
lovemenot
So, a result of the crisis was that Spain decided circumstances had changed
such that foreigners' cash was needed _less_ than before?

Your facts may be right (I don't know) but if so, Spanish authorities made a
basic economic error in that decision.

~~~
zb
No, you make more money exporting value-added products (like olive oil) than
raw ingredients (like olives). Basic economics says you want to move higher up
the value chain, and that's what (I'm told) they did.

Of course this caused further problems for Greece and Italy, which were
already not in good shape.

------
joshvm
To get an idea of how serious this scandal was, I have plenty of Spanish
friends who won't use rapeseed oil today because they believe it's too risky.

------
santialbo
My grandmother got intoxicated by the oil. She got super sick but recovered
completely. She´s been receiving a pension since as compensation.

~~~
lovemenot
Can you find out whether she was induced into claiming it was caused by the
oil?

The article claims that victims were only classified as such after they had
accepted oil as the cause of their sickness. So they had an incentive to do
so.

------
pipio21
It was not a scandal, it was criminal negligence, with lots of victims.

My hyphothesis after talking with chemists in the field is that someone reused
a container tank for synthetic oil in order to carry rapeseed oil.

The rapeseed oil dissolves synthetic oil easily.

They probably thought nothing would happen because of ignorance on the part of
the man that made it. He probably used water in order to clean the original
tank.

We have some bottles today of the stuff that was retired from the market and
could analyze it. There are traces on it of synthetic oil components.

This oil was sold in cheap rural markets, with a green colorant in order for
it to look similar to olive oil.

Because of rapeseed accident, nobody in Spain uses rapeseed anymore. They use
sunflower oil. Cheap oil from big multinationals that make things like cookies
is basically Palm oil.

Palm oil is destroying a big part of the world natural environment.

~~~
lovemenot
By introducing such an irrelevant yet controversial topic as palm oil, this
comment appears to deliberately attempt to deflect the thrust of the 2001
article: organophospates on tomatoes probably, not contaminated oils of any
kind, were responsible for this epidemic.

