The toxic oil epidemic in Spain, 40 years ago.

Abstract

Posada de la Paz et al.1 remind us of one of the outstanding episodes of European public health. It began on 1 May 1981, when a child from Torrejón de Ardoz was brought, lifeless, to the Hospital del Rey (National Hospital for Infectious Diseases) in Madrid. The cause of death was declared to be acute respiratory failure attributed to atypical pneumonia. As the whole family was affected, an outbreak of legionellosis was suspected, and indeed the incidence of new cases increased rapidly in the following days.2 The outbreak tested the scarce epidemiological surveillance resources of the new Spanish Ministry of Health, created just 3 years earlier. We recall also that it was only 4 months after the failed military coup on 23 February, and the political situation in the country was precarious. Speculation about the cause of the illness abounded. Some claimed a poison had been released from American Air Force planes based nearby. The minister of health, a university professor, suggested the outbreak was caused by a ‘bug so small that if it falls it kills itself’.3