IN 1981 in Spain, thousands of people became sick with a pneumonia-like respiratory disease and close to 5,000 people died. Initially assumed to be a contagious virus, the illness turned out to be caused by vegetable oil.

From Wikipedia:

The toxic oil syndrome , also known as toxic syndrome or rapeseed disease , was a massive poisoning suffered in Spain in the spring of 1981. The first case appeared on May 1 of that year and on June 10 the reason was discovered that caused them. The disease affected more than 20,000 people, ² causing the death of about 4,800 people, according to forensic studies and clinical analyzes collected by the sentence that convicted those responsible for the poisoning. ³

In 1989, the Supreme Court of Spain considered proven the causal relationship between the ingestion of denatured rapeseed oil and the disease, condemning the industrialists responsible for the distribution and commercialization of this oil, and the State as a subsidiary civil liable. ⁴ According to the ruling, the rapeseed oil, denatured for industrial use, was consciously diverted and for “an excessive profit motive”, to human consumption. ⁵

Its latency period is around 10 days. The ratio between women and men was 1.5 to 1, affecting to a greater extent the age groups of the third and fourth decades of life.

Please follow and like us: