What You Need to Know:<\/p>\n
California is experiencing\u00a0an unprecedented\u00a0outbreak of severe\u00a0illness, liver failure, and deaths from\u00a0people accidentally picking and\u00a0eating poisonous wild mushrooms, specifically Death Cap\u00a0and Western Destroying Angel\u00a0mushrooms.<\/p>\n
Sacramento County Public Health (SCPH), in alignment with the California Department of Public Health\u00a0(CDPH), is urging residents not to pick or eat wild mushrooms as the risk of potentially deadly amatoxin poisoning is high. Since\u00a0Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) and Western Destroying Angel (Amanita\u00a0ocreata)\u00a0are easily confused for safe-to-eat lookalike mushrooms, all mushroom foraging should be avoided.<\/p>\n
SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0SCPH\u00a0confirms\u00a03 recent\u00a0cases of amatoxin poisoning in Sacramento County caused by\u00a0people\u00a0accidentally picking and\u202feating Death Cap and\/or\u00a0Western Destroying Angel\u00a0mushrooms.\u00a0All three cases are\u00a0hospitalized for treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This comes amidst a continuing\u00a0statewide\u00a0outbreak<\/a>\u00a0linked\u00a0to the consumption of wild, foraged mushrooms.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0been reports of\u00a0severe liver damage in both children and adults,\u00a0resulting in\u00a0four\u00a0adult deaths and\u00a0at least four\u00a0liver transplants statewide to date.<\/p>\n Between November 18 and\u00a0May 14,\u00a02026,\u00a0the\u00a0California Poison Control System (CPCS)<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0identified\u00a049\u00a0cases\u00a0across Northern California and the Central Coast, spanning regions from Sonoma to San Luis Obispo. Affected\u00a0individuals\u00a0range in age from 19 months to 67 years and include family groups and individual cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n SCPH\u00a0and Sacramento County Regional Parks\u00a0remind\u00a0residents that wild mushrooms can be poisonous even if they resemble edible varieties and remain toxic even after cooking, boiling,\u00a0freezing\u00a0or drying.<\/p>\n \u201cWith poisonings continuing to increase across California, we want residents to understand that foraging wild mushrooms carries significant risk,\u201d said Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye. \u201cToxic mushrooms can be difficult to distinguish from edible varieties and can cause severe illness or death. The safest choice\u00a0amid this ongoing situation\u00a0is to avoid wild mushroom foraging entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u00a0SCPH\u00a0Is Doing:<\/p>\n Sacramento County Public Health is coordinating with CDPH and California Poison Control on case investigation,\u00a0tracking\u00a0and public outreach. SCPH is sharing\u00a0state-developed educational materials<\/a>\u00a0and reinforcing\u00a0statewide messaging<\/a>\u00a0to reduce exposure during this high-risk season.<\/p>\n What Residents Can Do:<\/p>\n Avoid picking and eating wild mushrooms during this high-risk season when Death Cap mushrooms are abundant. Death Cap mushrooms are still poisonous even after cooking, boiling,\u00a0freezing\u00a0or drying.<\/p>\n Initial symptoms, such as watery diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and dehydration can occur within 6 to 24 hours following ingestion of these toxic mushrooms and usually go away within a day. However, this brief improvement can be deceptive, as patients may still develop\u00a0serious to\u00a0fatal liver damage within 48 to 96 hours after eating the mushrooms.<\/p>\n Additional Education Resources:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What You Need to Know: California is experiencing\u00a0an unprecedented\u00a0outbreak of severe\u00a0illness, liver failure, and deaths from\u00a0people accidentally picking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[124451,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-324024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-health-and-social-services","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}