When Marisa Fernandez de Sanda went to a doctor in 1981 to complain about terrible itching and aches all over her body, she was told these were ``normal signs of spring.'' But as spring turned to summer and her condition grew worse, the 25-year-old mother of a small son and a baby began to think about the five-quart plastic jug of bargain ``olive oil'' she bought on the advice of a neighbor and the news she was seeing on television about people dying from something called ``atypical pneumonia.'' Eventually more than 700 people would be dead and 25,000 others would become mysteriously ill. Marisa Fernandez was one who became ill. ``I had always bought sunflower oil, but after my second pregnancy, the doctor recommended olive oil,'' she said in a recent interview in her home in the Province of Madrid. ``So when my neighbor said she knew a man who was selling it real cheap, I thought, here's a bargain.'' Her friend Clara Burgues de Dominguez bought three jugs of the oil at a street market because her husband was unemployed ``and every peseta counts when you're trying to make ends meet.'' In July 1981 both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues were admitted to the hospital and told they were suffering from what had gone from ``atypical pneumonia'' to a mysterious ``toxic syndrome'' that developed from the oil the two women thought was olive oil but in fact allegedly was rapeseed oil processed for industrial use, not for human consumption. The state brought 38 defendants to trial on charges of involvement in the import, refining and sale of the oil. Fifteen months of hearings ended in June but the verdict of the three-judge tribunal is not expected for six months, possibly a year. The state claims the oil was the cause of the deaths and the illness that affects the respiratory system, nerves, joints and muscles. ``I used the oil for everything _ making stews, frying meat and potatoes, salads, making mayonnaise,'' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I loved to dip bread in it when I was cooking and eat it on the spot.'' Her husband, Juan, and son, David, fell ill briefly but were not hospitalized. The baby did not become ill but was without his mother for the first six months of his life, something Juan Sanda thinks was equally as serious. ``The first time I was hospitalized for 25 days, my weight had fallen from 56 to 43 kilos (123 to 94 pounds),'' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I was in a room with about 25 other women, and they pumped us full of pills and shots. Every day someone would leave, and we would know they had died.'' Said Clara Burgues: ``When the pain got too bad, we would grab on to lamp posts when we were walking in the street. ``When we went to the hospital, they treated us like guinea pigs. They didn't know what to do with us, how to treat us, what to treat us for. They didn't have enough beds so they processed us through real quick. Then we just had to be readmitted again when it became unbearable.'' Marisa Fernandez returned to the hospital in September 1981, unable to use her hands or feet or to feed herself. ``I had no appetite, and all around me, people, particularly young girls, were dying.'' At 33, after three years of acupuncture and continuing twice weekly physical therapy sessions with other toxic syndrome sufferers, she still has frequent cramps and little feeling on the right side of her body. She can no longer type and can't work outside her home and receives from the government a monthly disability pension the equivalent of $270. ``There is something all those affected seem to feel,'' she said, looking at a photograph of herself, emaciated, in a bathing suit following her hospitalization. ``We all carry the disease on our faces, like a shadow.'' Although the Spanish press and most of those affected by the toxic syndrome blame the oil for the illness, Clara Burgues is not so sure. ``When I testified at the trial, they asked me to say whether I believed the oil was the cause of my problems. I told them how did they expect me, a housewife from a lower-middle class neighborhood, to answer that question. I told them of 28 people among my neighbors who all used the oil, I was the only one who got sick. But then they all ate tomatoes, too.'' That was a reference to the claim of some defense attorneys that the illness was due to organophosphate pesticides used on tomatoes grown in southeastern Spain around Almeria. Dr. Richard Doll, chief pathologist for Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund, testified at the trial that the oil was the cause of the illness. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the European branch office of the World Health Organization agreed with Doll's finding. Both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues say they are not sure they will ever get out from under the shadow of the mysterious illness. ``When it first struck, we were treated like lepers by neighbors and sometimes even family. They were afraid they would catch it,'' Marisa Fernandez said. The illness, once thought to be caused by a virus, is not contagious. Added Clara Burgues: ``But even now that we appeared to have recovered, we always have doubts _ whenever we get something, an ache, a problem, we wonder, could it be something caused by the illness. We are living the syndrome of the toxic syndrome.''
