When a previously unrecorded illness erupted in Madrid in 1981, many people in Spain panicked. It took five weeks and dozens of deaths to understand the cause: adulterated cooking oil. The illness — which came to be known as “toxic oil syndrome” — killed hundreds and left thousands with chronic conditions, many severe.

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       Four decades later, feeling that their grievances were not being heard, a few of those victims occupied a premier Madrid art museum, the Prado. If their demands were not met, they said, they would kill themselves within hours by ingesting pills.

       Six protesters were seen Tuesday standing before Diego Velázquez’s famous painting “Las Meninas”; they held a sign that read: “40 years poisoned and condemned to live as in 1981 because of the abandonment of the government.”

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       In a public statement, the members of Seguimos Viviendo, or “We Are Still Alive,” said that they were done with “humiliation” and “abandonment” by the country and that they were sending a “distress call to the world.”

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       They said that after six hours peacefully waiting and fasting in the “Las Meninas” display room, they would begin ingesting pills if their demands weren’t met. “Because what they have been waiting for these years is that we die to end the problem,” the group’s statement read. They asked for a meeting with the prime minister and money for medical expenses.

       The demonstration began at midmorning, and the protesters “left on their own” after a few hours, the museum’s communications team told The Washington Post. The museum added that it had no advance knowledge of the protest. The Reuters news agency reported that police detained two protesters and that others left about noon. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

       In 1981, illicitly refined rapeseed oil meant for industrial use was fraudulently sold as olive oil. Ingestion of the oil, mostly sold around Madrid, triggered an outbreak that shortly killed about 300 people. Of the approximately 100,000 people exposed, nearly 20,000 were found to have clinical disease, and many of them developed chronic conditions, according to a World Health Organization’s study of toxic oil syndrome.

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       Symptoms of the illness include limb deformation, immune system destruction and lung failure. Some victims have been permanently disabled.

       The protesters’ statement said they chose to demonstrate in the museum because culture has helped many victims endure their daily pain.

       In 1989, three judges dismissed murder charges against the oil distributors, causing outrage in Spain, the New York Times reported. Twenty-four defendants were fully acquitted, and all 37 accused were found not to have intended to cause death or injury.

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