The Spanish cooking oil scandal (2001)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
http://nypost.com/2016/07/10/the-truth-behind-how-were-scamm...
(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...")
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.
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?
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/doctors-groups-deny-microce...
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...
I'm quite close to some people in academic virology and they also were not to keen on calling for a Zika outbreak.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...
From the article: The original study on which the oil theory is founded, by Dr Juan Tabuenca Oliver, was published in the Lancet
Also from the article: they concluded that, without any doubt, the contaminated foodstuff was tomatoes, and it was the pesticides on them that were responsible for the epidemic. The organo-phosphorous chemicals would indeed cause the range of symptoms observed by clinicians.
Getting published in The Lancet does not prove anything. eg MMR vacine\autism.
The article is well worth a read.
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....
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).
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.
>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.
Also that part was covered in my opinion, as the article states "Nor was the oil theory underpinned by any laboratory science. In the years since the 1981 outbreak, the suspect oils have been analysed in leading laboratories throughout the world. No chemical, or contaminant, that would account for the symptoms observed in the afectados has ever been found."
Sure we could deplore the lack of citations. Of all the newspapers I read, only one lists sources at the end of the article. Unfortunately it's not common practice.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/world/trial-in-spain-on-to...
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/world/a-long-trial-in-spai...
> 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."
Of course, we don't need to worry about this today, because the new, shiny future has arrived.
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
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.
[1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfermedad_del_aceite_tóxico_d...
[2] http://www.cbgnetwork.org/129.html
[3] http://cbgnetwork.org/1522.html
As early as 1981 relevant spanish newspapers were telling the same story:
[4] http://free-news.org/index02-pag.htm
[5] http://free-news.org/cambio01.htm
Edit:
This is the last interview to Dr. Muro:
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.
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?
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.)
Are you suggesting that you still see evidence of people responding to the misinformation reported in this article? And that the news is still reporting this as fact?
But most people are familiar with other hypotheses, including the Bayer pesticides one.
I've seen compelling first-hand evidence that oil was the culprit, but I'm open to other hypotheses too.
And, scarily, it says that pesticide use in Spanish fruit is still high, and that a similar mass poisoning recently in Mexico was also covered up and another non-cause blamed.
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/
It makes way less economic sense to adulterate the olive oil in Spain when it is not a gourmet import, but a staple daily produce.
On the pricier premium virgen extra oil there has been some fraud, nonetheless (in Spanish: http://m.europapress.es/sociedad/consumo-00648/noticia-ocu-a...).
Your facts may be right (I don't know) but if so, Spanish authorities made a basic economic error in that decision.
Of course this caused further problems for Greece and Italy, which were already not in good shape.
Yes, actually we are the biggest extra virgin olive oil producers, exporters and probably also the biggest consumers in the world. Most people here has or knows a friend that produces the oil himself... 100% pure (from the trees to the oil mill). I don't remember the last time I used sunflower oil (the alternative option).
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-california-olive-oil/...
Italians and frenchies usually buy the product from Spain and rebrand it.
[1] http://time.com/money/4326354/fake-olive-oil-food-fraud/
Mostly yes. Spain accounts for 45% of the world's EVOO production.
Part of the problem in the US and other countries is that marketing successfully managed to convince people that the taste of cheap generic oil was the sign of quality and all the potent characteristic of virgin olive oil were undesirable.
Rapeseed oil nowadays start to get sold a bit more. But as rapeseed, not as colza. Any 30 something or older spaniard would never buy colza oil. That's how much that scandal has impacted the industry, and everybody has seen someone with the malformation due to the tainted oil (which may not be the real reason according to this article). That would commercial suicide if your brand was somewhat mixing its oil because of that scandal.
A last point is that Spain is really producing a lot of the stuff and is utterly inept at making a lot of money on it. Contrast that with Italy that buy Spanish oil and sell it at a premium just by labelling it "Italian Olive Oil". Actually that's another aspect of the US problem with oil. "Italian Olive Oil" is an extremely powerful label, one that, conveniently, has little legal meaning.
When a couple of months ago there was a critical article on the new York times the writer was rapidly dismissed just to prove the point.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/europe/spanish-wr...
My question is asking why no free press nor free police investigates the real cause of the mass poisoning.
This is not the first time that a commercial war based in vegetable products occurs in Europe. There is for example the recurrent episodes of vandalism by french productors against spanish trucks. They stop trucks and trow the contents in the road by force causing serious economical loses. Is practically a national tradition. Still happening in 2015 and gendarmerie does not much to stop it.
Sometimes politicians need to find quickly a scapegoat. In 2011 Germany accused spanish cucumber productors of contamination, and refuse to accept the clean results of the tests done in origin as true (yes, we have laboratories also). They were forced to retract later when the real origin of the outbreak was found in Germany, but spaniard producers lost a lot of money by the bad press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o...
What I'm trying to say is that his kind of articles aren't new and must be taken in its time context. Often there is an economic or political interest hidden that expires quickly. This article in the guardian points to tomato and was, curiously, written when EU wanted to reduce the subsidies to tomato producers. (Tomato was a strongly subsidized product in EU since 1978, but the system changed in 2001).
In my opinion, it was as the article says, right or wrong, somebody found the "canola oil" hypothesis and it was really convenient: with the same shot, the recent and weak vegetable production was protected and a competitor for the national olive oil was smashed.
Today, I guess that there is in nobodies interest in Spain to move the issue. Everybody is completely convinced of the "canola oil version", and the vegetable production is a sizeable part of the Spanish economy. Saying the contrary in Spain in polite company it's the kind of thing that would label you as a tin-foil conspirance theorist.
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/informe-semanal/informe-s...
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.
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.
The claim is of scandal, specifically a conscious cover-up and dishonest presentation of evidence. Moreover, nothing in this theory addresses the core observation here: the pattern of illness is completely unaligned with oil consumption, but matches the Almerian tomato distribution quite well.
wow, that's scandalous !
Why not the "official" version?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome
"The cause was traced to the consumption of colza oil that had been intended for industrial rather than food use. To discourage human consumption, the oil was denatured by the addition of aniline to make it smell and taste bad. It was then imported as cheap industrial oil by the company RAPSA at San Sebastián, handled by RAELCA and illegally refined by ITH in Seville to remove the aniline, resulting in a palatable product that could then be illegally sold."