Lo de la colza: Mass poisoning, state neglect, and corruption after the Spanish Transition

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Culinary rapeseed oil – or canola oil – is a staple in many parts of the world. It has a neutral flavor, it is on the healthy side as far as cooking oils go, and it is cheaper than olive and sunflower oils. It is not surprising, then, that it is the third major vegetable oil produced in the world. And yet, you won’t find it in any Spanish kitchen, or in any Spanish supermarket, for that matter. In fact, the mere mention of canola oil will send just about any Spaniard of a certain age into a rage. Understandably so, as for many, canola oil – aceite de colza or, colloquially, colza – still evokes memories of the deadly consequences of state neglect.

It was the Spring of 1981. Spain’s young and fragile democracy was recovering from Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero’s attempted coup d’etat of February 23^rd, when members of the military, nostalgic for the Francoist regime, had coordinated an assault on the Spanish Parliament. The military coup failed, but it signaled to the Spanish citizenry that the dictatorship refused to die an easy death.

Then, on May 1^st, 8-year-old Jaime Vaquero García died in Madrid of a mysterious new form of pneumonia; his parents and siblings were also hospitalized.^[1] At first, doctors suspected a viral or bacterial agent, perhaps a type of avian flu or Legionnaire’s Disease. A week later, three more people had died, and 40 more people, mostly children, were hospitalized.^[2] The symptoms of the new disease were low-grade fever, breathing difficulties, muscle pain, headache, and a dry cough. Some patients also presented symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, and children developed skin rashes like the ones associated with measles.

By May 12^th there were six deaths and over 200 people affected, and the epidemic had spread to several provinces in the center of the country.^[3] Meanwhile, those impacted by the disease were becoming increasingly and more visibly ill.^[4] They were losing weight at an alarming speed, turning them into the shadows of who they used to be.

People started to panic, and to demand action from public health authorities. On May 21^st, 1981, Minister of Labor, Health, and Social Security Jesús Sancho Rof, of conservative party UCD, made a statement that would make history for being as condescending as it was potentially lethal, as it misinformed the public by minimizing the severity of the disease and pointing to an incorrect culprit: “It’s less severe than the flu. It’s caused by a little bug. We know its first name and first last name. We’re missing its second last name. It’s so little that, if it falls from a table, it dies.”^[5]

The disease was not caused by a bug. In fact, a few days before Sancho Rof’s statement, Dr. Antonio Muro Fernández Cavada had been forced to resign from his position at Hospital del Rey in Madrid after he contradicted public health officials and claimed that the disease was of digestive origin.^[6] He was, however, onto something.

On June 11th, public health authorities identified a series of molecules, called aromatic amines, in a sample of canola oil that was being sold door to door as olive oil.^[7] While the results of the investigation were still inconclusive, there seemed to be a link between the oil and the new disease. In the next few days, authorities traced the samples back to REALCA, an unlicensed storehouse in Alcorcón (Madrid). By then, more than 2,000 people were hospitalized, and it was unclear how many were dead.^[8]

Controlling the distribution of the poisonous oil proved difficult.^[9] At the time, door-to-door sales of food products were relatively common in Spain. In exchange for cheaper prices, people trusted unregulated goods. Not an unreasonable trade-off, considering the limited purchasing power of middle and working-class Spaniards at the time, and that most sellers were not random strangers, but came recommended by friends, neighbors, and doormen. These word-of-mouth networks mediated between local social fabrics and small-scale commerce. It worked, for the most part, as most of the sellers involved operated in good faith.

Except, in this particular case, they didn’t. On June 17^th, health authorities confirmed that what was being sold as cooking oil was actually meant for industrial use and contained poisonous anilines used to denaturalize the oil.^[10] Two months and 96 deaths later, the Ministry of Health admitted that this was no accident nor mistake; there was criminal intent. A group of unscrupulous oil distributors had implemented a lucrative scheme exploiting people’s financial constraints and their networks of mutual trust to widen its profit margins by selling canola oil unfit for human consumption.^[11]

In the end, 38 people – among others, Juan Miguel Bengoechea, who imported the oil, Ramón Ferrero, Enric Salomó, and Ramón Alabart, who distributed it, and Jorge Pich, who acted as an intermediary – were found guilty, not of homicide but of crimes against public health and of criminal negligence. Bengoechea was sentenced to 20 years in prison, Ferrera to twelve years, Salomó and Alabart to four years, and Pich to ten years.^[12] A few years after the initial sentencing, Manuel Hernández, the civil servant who had approved the use of anilines in canola oil, was also found guilty of negligence and sentenced to six months in prison.^[13] In 1997, sixteen years after the first death, the Spanish Supreme Court – which had already extended the sentences of the guilty parties in 1992 – came to a final decision and forced the Spanish State to pay 100% of all compensations to the surviving victims and the families of the deceased.^[14] By the end of the judicial process, 1,100 people were dead, and between 20,000 and 25,000 had suffered from the colza toxic syndrome.

People experienced this episode as a major betrayal on the part of public authorities and the state.^[15] As my 64-year-old aunt succinctly put it: “they poisoned us, and they lied about it.” Like with many other issues in recent Spanish history, it all goes back to who “they” and “us” are, and to the remnants of the Francoist regime that refused to die an easy death.

It’s not just that the entrepreneurial masterminds behind this disaster had no moral qualms about making people consume industrial oil; they also operated under the assumption that they would not get caught. The truth is, they had little reason to believe they would. Cutting corners and tolerating low-level corruption have historically been features of the Spanish capitalist class and of our industrial fabric, allowed to flourish under the climate of generalized dishonesty and ineptitude fostered by the Francoist regime, whose shadow still, even today, looms large on local oligarchies.^[16]

Some wonder how it is possible that local police did not notice that there was a mass sales operation in place. Most door-to-door trade happened on a much smaller scale; vans distributing thousands of gallons of oil across the country^[17] should have been suspicious. However, it had only been six years since Franco’s death, and three years since Spain became a democracy. The post-Francoist police still saw themselves as guardians of the social and political order put in place by the previous regime, and had very little interest in the wellbeing of the population.

Public health authorities were not just notoriously inept, at least in the early stages of the crisis; they were also condescending and dismissive of people’s concerns.^[18] At times, they seemed more interested in protecting their version of the story than in solving the problem, as evidenced by Doctor Fernández Cavada’s forced resignation.^[19] Not only that, but Minister Sancho Rof’s paternalism invoked the antidemocratic representations of the Spanish citizenry as unruly children in need of authority and supervision – the very same rhetoric that the Francoist regime had used to justify four decades of authoritarianism, prosecution, torture, and murder.

And then, there were the people who bought the oil just to help make ends meet, unaware that they were being poisoned; those who still live with the long-term effects of the syndrome; the ones who died; and the ones that feared death in the spring of 1981.^[20]

They deserved better. It is too late now, but, at the very least, we should see this dark corner of our recent history remembered for what it was: an echo of decades of dictatorship, one of many that still reverberate in Spain’s public life. It is a matter of memoria histórica, but also of memoria sanitaria, that is, of finally reckoning not just with the social, political, and cultural legacies of the Francoist regime, but also with the medical ones that endured within the Spanish medical establishment, healthcare system, and public health institutions. Recognizing these legacies, and their many victims, allows us to see the Francoist regime as a forty-year-long campaign of political violence, as well as one of institutional neglect, criminal mismanagement, and social murder, one that continued long after Franco’s death and that continues even now to rear its ugly head.

In one of the latest scandals, the government of the Madrid Autonomous Community, led by conservative Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is under investigation for allowing 7,291 residents of nursing homes to die without medical care during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.^[21] When the time came to explain this merciless policy, Díaz Ayuso callously – and falsely – claimed that the deceased residents would have died anyway had they been transferred to hospitals.^[22] Meanwhile, her brother, Tomás Díaz Ayuso, collected over 200,000 euros in commissions in exchange for facilitating the purchase of protective face masks. Their mother’s business partner, Juan Carlos Herrero Casasola, received over 900,000 euros in taxpayer money to purchase ventilators during the third wave of the pandemic.^[23] While our grandparents died, they got rich.^[24]

Perhaps, with time, the younger generations will be more open to accepting canola oil into their diets. Meanwhile, we have more important battles to fight: the Spanish conservative right, in both its political and economic incarnations, still continues to cannibalize our healthcare and public health institutions for personal profit, using national crises as opportunities for business.

Notes

1. “Detectados nueve probables casos de la ‘enfermedad del legionario’ en Torrejón de Ardoz,” El País (Madrid), May 6, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/05/07/portada/358034404_850215.html. ↑
2. “Medidas sanitarias excepcionales ante el brote epidémico de neumonía atípica,” El País (Madrid), May 9, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/05/10/madrid/358341854_850215.html. ↑
3. Fernando Granda, “La epidemia de neumonía atípica se ha extendido al menos a otras cuatro provincias españolas,” El País (Madrid), May 12, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/05/13/madrid/358601055_850215.html. ↑
4. EFE, “Un afectado por la colza, 40 años después: ‘Ibas perdiendo peso, el pelo y la vida’,” 20minutos (Madrid), April 28, 2021, https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/4676465/0/un-afectado-por-la-colza-anos-despues-ibas-perdiendo-peso-perdias-el-pelo-y-la-vida-perdias/. ↑
5. Martín Narrillos, “‘Un bichito tan pequeño que, si se cae de la mesa, se mata’,” El País (Madrid), October 23, 1995, https://elpais.com/diario/1995/10/24/espana/814489216_850215.html. ↑
6. Later, he would deny that the origin of the disease was the denaturalized canola oil and would support a series of other theories. While the OMS and Spanish health authorities have disproved his theories, it is true that he was the first to point at the real origin of the disease. Fernando Granda, “La enfermedad se transmite por via digestiva, según las investigaciones del doctor Muro,” El País (Madrid), May 18, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/05/19/espana/359071224_850215.html. ↑
7. Jesús de las Heras, “Las aminas aromáticas son los productos tóxicos encontrados en el aceite relacionado con la neumonía,” El País (Madrid), June 11, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/12/espana/361144823_850215.html. ↑
8. “Los ingresos por neumonía atípica vuelven a superar a las altas,” El País (Madrid), June 6, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/07/espana/360712816_850215.html. ↑
9. “Continúan las requisas de aceite en diversas provincias,” El País (Madrid), June 18, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/19/espana/361749605_850215.html. ↑
10. “Se confirma que el aceite de colza para uso industrial es el causante tóxico de la neumonía atípica,” El País (Madrid), June 17, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/18/portada/361663203_850215.html. ↑
11. “Atentado contra la salud pública,” El País (Madrid), June 19, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/20/opinion/361836003_850215.html. ↑
12. “Condenas muy inferiores a las que pedía el fiscal,” El País (Madrid), May 20, 1989, https://elpais.com/diario/1989/05/21/espana/611704804_850215.html. ↑
13. Francisco Mercado and José Yoldi, “Un error desnaturalizado,” El País (Madrid), February 27, 1994, https://elpais.com/diario/1994/02/28/espana/762390022_850215.html; Irene Mira Serrano, “La tragedia olvidada del aceite de colza: el envenenamiento que mató a más de 3.000 personas,” ABC (Madrid), October 19, 2021, ↑
14. “El Supremo cuadruplica las penas de la colza y envía a prisión a otros 5 aceiteros,” El País (Madrid), April 28, 1992, https://elpais.com/diario/1992/04/29/portada/704498403_850215.html; Julio M. Lázaro, “El Estado pagará las indemnizaciones al 100%,” El País (Madrid), October 2, 1997, https://elpais.com/diario/1997/10/03/espana/875829629_850215.html. ↑
15. “‘Yo acuso’,” letter to the editor, El País (Madrid), Juley 28, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/07/29/opinion/365205603_850215.html ↑
16. Barciela López, Carlos. 1998. “Franquismo y corrupción económica”, Historia Social 30:83-96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40340519; Del Arco Blanco, Miguel Ángel. 2010. “El estraperlo: Pieza clave en la estabilización del régimen franquista”, Historia del Presente 15:65-78. http://hdl.handle.net/10481/32351; Preston, Paul. 2020. A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence and Social Division in Modern Spain. New York: Liveright; and Sánchez Recio, Glicerio and Tascón Fernández, Julio, eds. 2003. Los Empresarios de Franco: Política y Economía en España, 1936-1957. Barcelona: Crítica. . ↑
17. “Ayer se requisaron 39.250 litros de aceite tóxico,” El País (Madrid), July 7, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/07/08/espana/363391232_850215.html. ↑
18. “La adulteración tóxica del aceite pudo conocerse antes de los primeros fallecimientos,” El País (Madrid), August 29, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/08/30/espana/367970418_850215.html. ↑
19. “La función del Ministerio no era descubrir la neumonía, dice Sancho Rof,” El País (Madrid), June 19, 1981, https://elpais.com/diario/1981/06/20/espana/361836024_850215.html. ↑
20. Amelia Castilla, “Vivir con la colza,” El País (Madrid), February 29, 1992, https://elpais.com/diario/1992/03/01/sociedad/699404401_850215.html; “A mi padre,” letter to the editor, El País (Madrid), December 25, 1992, https://elpais.com/diario/1992/12/26/opinion/725324404_850215.html. ↑
21. Manuel Rico, “El ‘Protocolo de la Vergüenza’ del Gobierno Ayuso era de obligado cumplimiento para todo el personal dependiente de Sanidad,” InfoLibre, March 5, 2021. https://www.infolibre.es/politica/protocolo-verguenza-gobierno-ayuso-obligado-cumplimiento-personal-dependiente-sanidad_1_1194498.html. ↑
22. Celeste López, “Un informe concluye que los 7.291 mayores que murieron en residencias de Madrid fueron abandonados a su suerte,” La Vanguardia, March 15, 2024. https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20240315/9563703/informe-concluye-7-291-mayores-murieron-residencias-abandonados-suerte.html. ↑
23. C. Villar, “El exmarido, los padres, el hermano… Quién es quién en la familia de Isabel Díaz Ayuso,” El Confidencial, February 18, 2022. https://www.vanitatis.elconfidencial.com/famosos/2022-02-18/isabel-diaz-ayuso-familia-hermano-padre-madre-quien_3377342/ ↑
24. The link between Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s government (and personal circles) and the private healthcare industry is deeper and more complicated than what I can convey in this article. During her mandate, she has systematically favored private healthcare and health insurance companies, allowing them to take over the regional public healthcare system, even if that has worsened the quality of the services that citizens receive. Besides the ideological aspect of these decisions, there are grounds to suspect financial motive, as, coincidentally, Quirón Salud -one of the largest operating private health insurance companies in Spain- has been conducting business amounting to millions of euros with Díaz Ayuso’s romantic partner, Alberto González Amador, also under investigation for tax fraud and a constellation of other white collar crimes. ↑

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Featured image caption: A canola field in full bloom. (Courtesy Irina Iriser)