An article was just posted on the Russian SOTT about a mysterious accute pneumonia outbreak that happened in 1981 in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain, and its connection to the local U.S military base.
I searched for the information in English and also Spanish. And also looked if we have anything about it on the forum. Here's what I found.
Apparently it was called a "
Toxic oil syndrom".
Here's an article about it dated 7th of May, 1981, in Spanish:
Nueve casos de neumonía aguda, probablemente la enfermedad del legionario, han sido detectados en los últimos días en la localidad madrileña de Torrej
elpais.com
And here's what I found on the forum. Apparently there was also an interview with the author, but it isn't available anymore.
I have translated that part of the book in which the events surrounding this crisis in Spain are narrated:
LA CIA EN ESPAÑA ebook 2017
ALFREDO GRIMALDOS
Publisher: PENINSULA
ISBN: 9788499425757
The CIA in Spain: Espionage, Intrigue and Politics in the Service of Washington
by Alfredo Grimaldos
Chapter 12 THE DARK SIDE OF THE "COLZA"
It's a bug so small that if it falls off this table, it breaks its legs.1
On May 1, 1981, a new and unknown disease officially appeared, which began on the outskirts of Madrid and then spread to the north and northwest. Later, isolated cases of the same disease were also recorded in the south and east of the peninsula. The disease was initially called "atypical pneumonia", later on it was called "toxic syndrome" and finally it is now known as "rapeseed oil syndrome". This variety of oil was blamed for the mass poisoning.
But thirty-five years after the origin of that epidemic, which has caused about one thousand two hundred dead and more than thirty thousand sick, there is still controversy about what caused the disaster. It is clear, however, that it was not the rapeseed oil that caused it. The WHO European Office has issued a report acknowledging that the disease could not be reproduced in the laboratory on the basis of samples of the allegedly toxic oil. But from the beginning, the "rapeseed" thesis did not hold up. The most reliable data pointed in a very different direction.
General Andrés Cassinello himself, at that time the head of the Guardia Civil information services and a trusted person at Moncloa, expressly forbade any investigation of the case.
2 But the men from CESID
[NOTE: the Spanish Intelligence Centre at the time] did get to work and, for nearly a year, a team of two officers in charge of the case broke it down. The result, contained in a seven-page report submitted to the Centre's director general, General Emilio Alonso Manglano, is worrying: the oil thesis has no foundation. Al contrario, existen datos que apuntan hacia un ensayo de guerra química como detonente de la epidemia. Pero este informe nunca llegó a ver la luz pública. On the contrary, there are data that point to a chemical warfare trial as the trigger for the epidemic.But this report never saw the light of day, not even at the trial. The question is: why is this effort to blame the rapeseed oil, what prevents us from looking in other directions and closes the door to research that points to much more convincing results? Once again
la Raison d'Etat.
On January 29th, Adolfo Suárez, President of the Spanish Government, presented his resignation. He enigmatically justified this decision before the cameras of TVE, stating that he was acting in this way to avoid that, once again, "democracy in Spain would be a brief chapter in its history". A month later, on February 23rd, the coup attempt led by Milans del Bosch y Tejero takes place with the approval of the American Embassy. Then, on May 1st, the first death due to the toxic syndrome was registered and, in fourth place, during the following month of August, the Council of Ministers, presided by Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, who replaced Suárez at the head of the Government, agreed on Spain's entry into NATO.
ALL THESE EVENTS ARE INTERCONNECTED.
[the emphasis is mine ]
The "new and unknown" disease, initially described as "atypical pneumonia", takes over in May, but its characteristic symptoms have appeared more widely before, so that WHO has no choice but to acknowledge the possibility that some previous cases have occurred.
3 in April. Later on, the investigations of doctors Francisco Javier Martinez Ruiz and María Jesús Clavera that in January.4 and February there have been some hospital admissions, with clinical pictures similar to those of the "syndrome", of people coming from the area of Torrejón de Ardoz. But the health authorities are doing everything possible to prevent the outbreak at the beginning of the year from being linked to that of May.
It was also discovered that in the joint use military base of Torrejón an epidemic wave had been unleashed within the North American zone. Eyewitnesses say that hospital planes have arrived to evacuate the sick to the United States and to the German base in Wiesbaden. During the following months there is a great movement of personnel, so that the base is practically completely renewed. In addition, there are also Spanish military personnel stationed at the Torrejón base who have been hospitalised. But when the court that judges the oil workers asks for their medical records, the army refuses to hand them over, despite the fact that there are "surveys" in Torrejón de Ardoz, the Sears Clinic and the Hospital del Aire. 5 publishes that 105 patients have been admitted for "atypical pneumonia" to the Hospital del Aire, another 7 to the Hospital Militar del Generalísimo and 19 to the Hospital Militar Gómez Hulla.
The suspicion that the base .6 is the origin of the epidemic came to gather before its doors several manisfestations called by the neighbors of the surroundings, and the mayor of Torrejón de Ardoz presented his resignation.7 The USSR also points to the American installation as the epicenter of an accident with bio-weapons. The official news agency TASS states that "the focus is on Torrejón". 8 after maintaining that "the Pentagon bases, in numerous cases, constitute outbreaks of epidemic diseases". In addition, the Soviet agency points out that "the press and public opinion have a duty to demand that the United States demonstrate whether it has destroyed its stockpile of bacteriological weapons, in accordance with the international convention that was signed in 1972.
The erratic government campaign of information poisoning, which culminates with the attribution of all responsibilities to rapeseed oil , starts with a delirious explanation. The origin of the disease is still attributed to
Mycoplasma pneumoniae.9 a bacteria-""the little bug""-that travels through the air and is transmitted by the respiratory tract. The authorities also speak, falsely, of a "mycoplasma that has been photographed in a public laboratory". However, at that time, the thesis of airborne transmission was already scientifically untenable, considering that the contagion had occurred in almost family groups, not in crowded places, and that it had spread to different geographical areas far from each other. Moreover, the human groups affected had no relationship with each other.10
It seems clear that the aim is to create an alibi to hide the real causes of the epidemic. The impression is beginning to spread that information is being deliberately withheld, and the Minister of Health, Jesús Sancho Rof, is forced to make the "official denial".
11
Very soon, the government's explanation of "the bacteria" and its "airborne transmission" can no longer be sustained. On May 10, Dr. Antonio Muro witnesses the autopsy of one of the victims and notices a "hyperplasia in the Pleyer plaques" in the small intestine, which reveals a reaction in the organism to a toxin, and concludes that the epidemic is caused by an element ingested through the digestive tract.
However, despite the evidence, health authorities still reject this explanation "as ridiculous", and maintain the thesis of contagion through the respiratory tract.12 The origin of the disease must be concealed at all costs. But once it has been incontrovertibly established that the digestive system is the only possible way of extending the pathology, the frenetic search for a scapegoat to take the blame begins.The existence on the Spanish market of edible rapeseed oils imported as surplus from the Community
[European Community], destined for the production of steel, which have been diverted for human consumption, is discovered and the construction of a new alibi begins. Mere fraudsters will end up being criminalised, benefiting illegally from low tariff rates. From then on, it is insisted that the aniline used to denature imported oil is the cause of the epidemic. But, in reality, neither aniline has been used nor is the oil denatured.
Furthermore, the symptoms of aniline poisoning have been known for a long time and none of them coincide with those suffered by the patients. And given the low concentration of aniline found in the oils when they are analysed, this substance cannot be the cause of the disease.
Doctor Javier Martinez Ruiz, member of the Epidemiological Research Commission, is beginning to maintain a critical position with respect to the official theses, as is Doctor María Jesus Clavera. After tabulating by province and by day the record of "new cases, relating them to the periods of distribution and withdrawal of oil from the market, they conclude that the epidemic is unrelated to the intake of rapeseed oil. "In principle, we believed what was said in all the media," —says Martínez, "but as we slowly moved forward in the investigation, everything, absolutely everything, was at odds with the official thesis. Now, we can attest that it certainly could not have been the oil. As a response to their scientific contributions, the Commission is dissolved, to avoid the presence of both scientists in it.
Surprisingly, the epidemiological investigation has been centralized, since May 11, at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.13 It is in charge of three U.S. administration officials, doctors Rigau, Heath and Kilbourne. They are directly responsible for the biases systematically introduced in the epidemiological studies being developed, in the investigations and in the "cases and controls". As Rafael Pérez Escolar, who studied the case of the "toxic syndrome" in depth, said: "it is as if the autopsy of the corpse were entrusted to the murderer". The CDC's links with the Pentagon are notorious. And the Center's involvement in bacteriological weapons development programs is also well known.
The symptoms, common to all the patients, make us presume the necessary homogeneity of the cause that has provoked the pathology. However, the analysis of the oils found in the houses of the patients show their absolute heterogeneity. Their composition is different (olive, sunflower, grape seed, rape...) and they come from different commercial consignments, which prevents the disease from being attributed to a single oil.
"I was put in charge of defending the Catalan oil producers who were being processed, and the first thing my clients told me was that the same oil that they had sold in Catalonia to cause the disease was not a single case of toxic syndrome. — says lawyer Jesús Castrillo. Then I brought some samples to Madrid and asked for a test with guinea pigs, to determine the type of lesions produced in these animals. The final result was that the symptoms of the disease were not exactly produced, but certain lesions were produced. I asked to see the protocol of the developed experimentation and I found that the doses given to the guinea pigs extrapolated to a human being, was an enormous amount, something like cisterns and tanks... How can the National Institute of Toxicology, dependent on the Ministry of Justice, do that? The experiment was conducted by Dr. Tena. Then it was repeated, with doses proportionate to the weight of the animals and there were no consequences. That made me think for the first time that there were political instructions behind it."
Everything indicates that the origin of the disease is not unknown, but that it is being hidden by all means. If the oil is the cause of the epidemic, it seems inevitable that the other relatives of the victims will also suffer the effects of the toxicity. However, half of all those suffering from the toxic syndrome are immediately taken to hospital, thus keeping them away from the factor that has allegedly attacked them. Meanwhile, his relatives continue to consume the acetyl, without anyone else being affected, at least for another forty days, until June 10, when it is publicly stated that this is the cause of the illness. And the family group is, genetically, the most homogeneous. The official version does not make any sense.
At the same time, Dr. Antonio Muro, as director of the Hospital del Rey, continues his research through other channels, with greater scientific rigor and notable success. He manages to get the pulse of the disease in such a way that he is able to predict where new patients will appear.14 But there is nothing magical about his predictions; he has discovered that the syndrome is related to the sale of vegetables in a street market that is set up in different towns in the Madrid area. If the latency of the disease is 24 hours, because the toxic agent acts in a very acute way, it is enough to know where the market was to determine in which area new patients will appear. Muro concludes that the disease is caused by the previous intake of enslada, so the toxic element must be in the components of that dish: lettuce, onion, tomato ... He follows different research theses and discards the oil . The different oils consumed by the patients are analyzed and they do not have anything strange in common. Furthermore, even rapeseed oil is not the most present in the homes of the sick.
The certainty of his conclusions also costs Dr. Muro his job. It would be logical that the Spanish public health system, anguished by the pressure of so many sick people, should take him into consideration; however, it is dispensing with him in a despotic way. Someone is afraid that he will be able to discover what is behind the toxic syndrome. On June 15 he is dismissed, without any explanation, from his position as director of the King's Hospital and relegated to a basement in the Majadahonda food and nutrition centre, where he does not even have a telephone. From there he continues his progress in research, 15 using the traditional method of epidemiological surveys. He talks to the relatives of each patient and asks them where the vegetables that were put in the salads came from. When two housewives point to the same store, he goes there and asks the owner who supplies the produce. If several shops point to the same wholesaler, she goes to him to find out where he gets his produce. This goes on until she rebuilds the wholesale channels connected to the toxic syndrome patients.
And it is curious, all these wholesalers, without exception, are related to a supply of tomatoes from Almeria. It should be noted that the first patient appears on May 1st, when it is spring in the peninsula. Therefore, it has to be early tomatoes and —And it is curious, all these wholesalers, without exception, are related to a supply of tomatoes from Almeria. It should be noted that the first patient appears on May 1st, when it is spring in the peninsula. Therefore, it has to be an early tomato and - it can only originate in Cnarias, Almeria, Granada or Valencia. It would be enough that the tomatoes consumed by the patients came from the Canary Islands, others from Valencia..., for the tomato thesis to be abandoned, but there is a phenomenon of convergence towards Almeria and, more specifically, towards Roquetas de Mar. In this coastal town, there are several “alhóndigas”[like corn exchange] where tomatoes are auctioned, but the track followed by Dr. Muro was exclusively: Agrupamar. Jesús Castrillo points out:
Through the delivery deposit papers for sale, it could have been perfectly determined which farmer, which plantation was responsible for the distribution of toxic tomatoes. They provided us with some of those papers through the court but, then, what a coincidence! Agrupamar was liquidated. With which we arrived only at the names of the six farmers who worked with that society. One of them is the one who commercialized the toxic tomatoes. But there it all ends, the court showed no interest in continuing the investigation. But there it all ends, the court showed no interest in continuing the investigation.
When the PSOE [socialist party] comes to government, after its electoral victory in October 1982, it inherits the problem and continues to act along the same lines as its predecessors. "What difference does it make if the UCD or the PSOE were in the government?—. "What difference does it make if the UCD or the PSOE were in the government?" Says Jesus Castrillo. "We are pointing out that the origin of the disease may affect the political interests of the power that is at the forefront of the Empire, which is gaining entry of Spain in NATO”.
In the judgment against the oil workers, it is recognized that the existence of a "causal relationship" could not be established; what is really aimed at is a "probability relationship", something legally very weak. The truth is that it is never proven that rapeseed oil is the cause of the disease. "The type of injury suffered by the patients makes us suspect, in all probability, an organophosphate. It attacked the nipples and the skin. Later, a delayed neuropathy appeared. The matter was almost sung, but the investigation had to be kept close to reality, "adds Castrillo.The complaints and protests of the majority of those affected are flooded with billions of pesetas invested as compensation. To collect this public money, it is essential to be sick "from the colza". Those who state that they have never shared this type of oil are "convinced" that they will have contracted the disease by eating a cupcake, a churro or an aperitif in a bar. An unavoidable argument is used: you have to suffer from "atypical pneumonia", and as a consequence of the consumption of rapeseed oil. If you do not meet this requirement, you are not entitled to compensation. The aid is only for those suffering from "toxic syndrome". And at the head of this great carousel of millions is, as president of the National Toxic Syndrome Plan, none other than Carmen Salanueva. This civil servant will be tried and imprisoned years later for her swindling of the public purse when she is director of the BOE (Official State Bulletin). And that is small change, compared to the money that was moved on account of the "toxic syndrome".
But there are also many sick people who have never consumed rapeseed oil and who still refuse to accept that the illness they suffer has this origin, although with this attitude they risk their inclusion as a "recognized patient" and the substantial aid and compensation linked to this condition of being a victim of the "toxic oil syndrome". This is how the pathology is described during the official investigation, in order to prevent the opening of another more rational way to search for the etiology of the disease. The National Plan even invested more than 300 million pesetas in trying to prove that rapeseed oil is the cause of the epidemic. And it does not succeed.
Significant is the attitude of Dr. Susana Sanz, director of the Commission of Epidemiological Research, upon her return to Spain after an interview with Dr. Heth at the CDC in Atlanta. She returns very upset and renounces her initial research purposes, proposing to the members of the Commission, among them Dr. Martinez and Dr. Clavera, to "pack up and leave". She suggests using the absence of the computer she had requested as an excuse. And later, on seeing the receptive attitude of Dr Martinez to the research carried out by Dr Muro, he says to him: "Don't you realise, Javier, that there is a general agreement between all the political parties to leave the issue of the toxic syndrome as it is? You do not know what is behind all this, I have information that you do not have".
Rafael Pérez from the school, who dedicates a documented and forceful chapter of his memoirs.16 to the "toxic syndrome", relates an illustrative anecdote:
Pedro Sabando, Minister of Health when Joaquín Leguina was President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, maintained a close friendship with Dr. Muro and, when the latter was about to die, the Socialist Minister of the Community gave him a visit. The dying man, obsessed by the "toxic syndrome" and its tragic consequences, blamed him for the fraudulent attitude of the government in attributing the epidemic to rapeseed oil.And the socialist told him sincerely: "Leave it, Antonio, don't give it any more thought, this matter is the CIA and the KGB together". 17
The certainty that organophosphate compounds are also aggressive agents of 'chemical warfare',18 and the more than suspicious attitude developed by all political groups, protecting the official position and ignoring the problem that affects a significant number of victims, implies the intervention of a power so great and irresistible as to be able to impose and sustain a unanimous pact of silence on everyone," —says Jesús Castrillo. In short, only the involvement of the interests of a superpower would justify the deployment of political means made to hide the real causes of such a serious illness".
Everything seems to indicate that the toxic syndrome develops in two distinct epidemic waves. The first of these occurs in early to mid-January 1981. It coincides with an undetermined illness that develops in the middle of winter in the North American area of the Torrejón base and that also affects some Spanish military personnel. It is possible that this first epidemic wave is the result of some bacteriological leakage caused by the presence of bacteria in the base, which is contrary to international law and contravenes the bilateral treaty that allowed its creation. A serious inconvenience in the time of "NATO, entry, NO" [PSOE's slogan]
Reproduction of a leaflet that the PSOE launched in 1982 with its famous 'NATO, NO entry
OTAN, de entrada NO, o las piruetas del poder
Jesus Castrillo concludes:
With the second wave, by means of toxic tomatoes treated with organophosphates, the aim was to induce a wider, more extended epidemic, whose signs and symptoms would not only cover those of the first wave, but would also aggravate them, so that by spreading the disease not only in Torrejón de Ardoz, but over a large part of the national territory, Torrejón would be just one more tree, and with no qualitative importance, in the tormented geography of the disease. The whole lie generated around the investigation was precisely to hide the origin of the second epidemic wave generated intentionally, poisoning some consignments of tomatoes in Roquetas de Mar.
The
raison d'etat and the pact of silence between the great political parties prevented the clarification of who was really behind that massive poisoning, which could have been caused by the black hand of the US intelligence services. Twenty-five years later, the warning issued by the WHO Working Group is still valid: "As long as the precise cause remains undiscovered, there can be no assurance that this type of disease will not be repeated".
- Explanation offered by the Minister of Health of UCD, Jesus Sancho Rof, to clarify the origin of an illness that would cause 1200 dead and 3000 sick.
- Rafael Cid. Foreword to the book El Montaje del Síndrome Toxico, by Gudrus Greunke and Jörg Heimbretcht, Editorial Obelisco , Barcelona 1988.
- The research carried out by the oil producers' defences tried to locate, through the data registered in the National Institute of Statistics, if in 1981 there was any significant increase in morbidity. In fact, the Institute's data show the incidence of the official toxic syndrome in hospital stays caused by "poisoning or intoxication by other agents". In Madrid, during 1980 there were 881 hospital stays for men and in 1981 the number rose to 19,366. In the case of women, in 1980 there were 480 stays and in the following year there were 34,160.
- The existence of a strange and unknown illness in Madrid in the firs months of 1981 is reported in the book "La Colza o qué? On February 11 a person dies in the Hospital de la Paz. He had been admitted that same day. The doctors asked the family's permission to carry out an autopsy on the body "because in those days there had been other deaths due to a strange and unknown illness".
- El País, 26 May 1981
- Hoja del Lunes, June 8, 1981." On the other hand, there is no confirmation that the origin of the epidemic is the military base, although rumors have reached Atlanta, always denying the possibility."
- Diario 16, July 31, 1981. "While in the Ministry meetings were taking place and legionella and other germs were being discussed, in Torrejón the residents were taking to the streets in protest against the problem and demanding solutions... Meanwhile, all eyes were on the base, and at one point the mayor was demanded to denounce it... The leaflets spoke of bacteriological warfare and reported that they were putting pressure on the mayor to point out the military base.”
El País, 28 May 1981
- Diario 16, 21 May 1981
- El País, 26 May 1981
- Diario 16, 22 May1981
- Diario 16, 24 July 1981
- All the raw data of the cases and controls obtained during the official investigation were forwarded to the CDC and in that center they remain sequestered, without the possibility of contrasting or reevaluating them, despite the fact that their referral was repeatedly criticized by the Court that judged the case of the "toxic syndrome".
- Pueblo, 21 May 1981
- Dr. Muro's epidemiological research was carried out without interruption from May 1981 to very shortly before his death, in April 1985. It was carried out in more than 25 geographical areas, studying 1,086 patients and 1,154 healthy people, that constituted the most extensive epistemiological investigation developed around the toxic syndrome, much more extensive than that carried out to try to support the official hypothesis of rapeseed oil, which only covered nine areas. Furthermore, Dr. Muro acted on a sufficiently representative sample that, unlike the official investigation, encompassed all aspects of a global epidemiological investigation, the ultimate goal of which is to determine the cause and the causal factors determining the epidemic. That is, the study of causal factors, of the spatio-temporal distribution of the causal factor, of temporal and spatial coherence and agreement between the epidemic and the causal factor.
- Rafael Pérez Escolar, Memorias, Foca, Madrid, 2005.
- Ibid.
- Organophosphate compounds were first synthesized as war gases on the occasion of military research carried out by the US Army in Germany during World War II. The "biocidal" nature of the product also allowed its application as insecticides-pesticides with a high polluting power, the medium and long-term consequences of which are difficult to assess.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
