SUBSTANCES similar to paracetamol may have caused Europe’s most serious
outbreak of poisoning, 20 years ago in Spain. The discovery could help to close
the case on a disaster that has baffled investigators.
More than 20,000 people fell ill in 1981 with a strange muscle-wasting
disease—dubbed toxic-oil syndrome—which went on to kill between 300
and 400 people. Some 17,000 are still ill.
Investigators traced the cause to industrial-grade rapeseed oil which had
been disguised as olive oil and sold on street markets (New Scientist,
16 July 1987, p 29). Factory owners were jailed in 1983 for…
