California authorities are warning people not to eat foraged mushrooms for the time being after nearly two dozen people were sickened \u2014 including one fatally \u2014 by a highly poisonous mushroom known as the death cap.\n<\/p>\n
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) said in its advisory<\/a> that there have been 21 confirmed cases of toxic mushroom poisoning \u2014 which it says is “likely” from consumption of death caps \u2014 between mid-November and last Friday.\n<\/p>\n Toxins from the mushrooms killed one adult and caused severe liver damage in kids and other adults. Several patients required intensive care, “with at least one individual potentially needing a liver transplant,” health officials added.\n<\/p>\n Officials said there have been “significant clusters” of cases reported in the Monterey<\/a> and San Francisco Bay Areas, but are warning of risk statewide.\n<\/p>\n “Because the death cap can easily be mistaken for edible safe mushrooms, we advise the public not to forage for wild mushrooms at all during this high-risk season,” said CDPH director Dr. Erica Pan.\n<\/p>\n \n An unusually rainy season<\/a> has created particularly favorable growing conditions for the mushrooms, as was the case<\/a> in December 2016<\/a>, when state officials reported 14 cases<\/a> of death cap poisoning. All of the individuals survived, but three required liver transplants and one child had “permanent neurologic impairment.”\n<\/p>\n Death caps may thrive in California, but they are not limited to the state. The highly poisonous species is responsible for 90%<\/a> of mushroom-related fatalities worldwide.\n<\/p>\n Death cap sightings and poisonings have been reported across the Midwest<\/a>, Northeast<\/a> and Mountain West in recent years. Most recently, in October, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reported that<\/a> the “world’s deadliest mushrooms” had been spotted in Boise.\n<\/p>\n Where do death caps grow?\u00a0<\/p>\n Death cap mushrooms, or Amanita phalloides, originated in Eurasia but are now found in many other places, including North America and Australia \u2014 where they were implicated in a high-profile mass murder case<\/a> earlier this year. (The U.K. conservation charity Woodland Trust<\/a> says they have been an “invisible murder weapon for millennia,” blamed in the deaths of Roman Emperor Claudius<\/a> in 54 AD and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI<\/a> in 1740.)\n<\/p>\n They are thought to have arrived in Central California<\/a> in the 1930s by accident, via the roots of imported European oaks, and have taken hold across the state \u2014 and beyond \u2014 in the decades since.\n<\/p>\n “It’s intriguing because it’s from one place, and it’s spreading in another place,” Anne Pringle, a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told NPR<\/a> in September, pointing to Northern California as a death cap “hot spot.”\n<\/p>\n Death cap mushrooms typically grow near oak, pine and other hardwood trees, often in widely spaced groups. They tend to be more common in urban and suburban wooded areas, as opposed to forests.\n<\/p>\n “They’re just inherently around places where people are,” Britt Bunyard, a mycologist and editor-in-chief of FUNGI Magazine, told member station KQED<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n That makes them a significant threat to people and pets, especially considering they don’t look too different from other kinds of harmless mushrooms.\n<\/p>\n What makes them so poisonous?\u00a0<\/p>\n Death cap mushrooms are similar in appearance and taste<\/a> to other edible varieties, like puffballs, especially in their young “button” stage.\n<\/p>\n They are typically medium-to-large in size \u2014 growing up to 6 inches across and 6 inches tall \u2014 with a greenish-gray cap that is initially dome-shaped but flattens out over time. They have white gills, a white ring around the stem and a large white sac at the base of the stem.\n<\/p>\n Bunyard says the death cap mushroom actually smells and tastes “quite nice,” leaving “no hint that it’s poisonous in any way.”\n<\/p>\n But they got their name for a reason.\n<\/p>\n Eating half a cap or less could be enough to kill a person, with the mortality rates<\/a> after ingestion reaching as high as 50%.\n<\/p>\n While death cap mushroom poisonings are hard to track, some scientists estimate that they cause about 10,000 illnesses and 100 deaths<\/a> around the world each year.\n<\/p>\n What happens after eating them?\u00a0<\/p>\n Death cap mushrooms produce a highly toxic peptide called \u03b1-Amanitin, or AMA, which is resistant to heat, cold, drying, freezing and stomach acid.\n<\/p>\n The Food and Drug Administration<\/a> (FDA) says AMA poisoning is characterized by the delayed onset of symptoms, starting on average after six to 15 hours, but potentially up to 48 hours. They manifest in sudden stomach pain, persistent vomiting and watery diarrhea and extreme thirst that may only last a day.\n<\/p>\n “If this early phase is survived, the patient may appear to recover for a short time, but this period generally will be followed by a rapid and severe loss of strength, prostration, and restlessness caused by pain,” the FDA says.\n<\/p>\n It explains that the disease causes “irreversible” liver, kidney, cardiac and skeletal-muscle damage, often ending in a coma and death after four to eight days.\n<\/p>\n “If recovery occurs, it generally requires at least a month and is accompanied by enlargement of the liver,” the FDA adds.\n<\/p>\n There are few effective treatments for death cap poisoning. Doctors tend to treat symptoms<\/a> by administering activated charcoal, large doses of penicillin and a newer drug called silibinin, as well as rehydration and, in some cases, liver transplants.\n<\/p>\n
Death cap mushrooms are known to grow in many parts of California, fueled especially by the fall and winter rain.\n<\/p>\n