Three people were in a Sydney hospital yesterday after eating poisonous Death Cap mushrooms, in an incident which triggered a health warning about the deadly fungi.
...eating just one of the silky white-to-greenish-brown capped, white-gilled fungi can be fatal
Reports said the people hospitalised believed the mushrooms were an edible type found in China when they ate them at a party in Canberra on New Year’s Eve and had no inkling of the plant’s toxicity.
Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital confirmed that three people who had been transferred from Canberra were in its care. “RPA is treating three people,” a spokesman for the hospital said, adding that no further information would be available out of respect for the patients’ privacy.
One other patient was discharged from a Canberra hospital after recovering, a spokesman for Australian Capital Territory Health said. All parts of the Death Cap mushroom, which are difficult to distinguish from an edible mushroom, are poisonous and eating just one of the silky white-to-greenish-brown capped, white-gilled fungi can be fatal.
“The mushroom looks very similar to a mushroom known as the Paddy Straw mushroom which is common in Southeast Asia and is a delicacy and people eat it regularly as a source of food,” Michael Hall, director of The Canberra Hospital’s emergency department, told ABC TV.
Officials believe that recent summer rains have allowed the poisonous mushrooms, which cause vomiting within hours and are potentially fatal within days due to liver failure, to sprout in Canberra ahead of their normal season.
“People should not eat any mushroom unless they can be absolutely certain that it is not poisonous,” Mr Hall said in warning statement issued by the Australian Capital Territory government.
“It can be difficult for even experienced collectors to tell poisonous and safe species of wild mushroom apart.”
Mr Hall said anyone who suspected they may have eaten Death Cap mushrooms, otherwise known as Amanita phalloides, should seek urgent medical help, because the sooner treatment begins, the better the patient’s chances of survival.
Three people have died in the Australian Capital Territory in the last decade due to Death Cap mushroom poisoning, while there have been about a dozen cases of illness.
Death trail of poison mushroom
The statue of Roman Emperor Claudius, one of the possible victims of the Death Cap mushrooms, at the Vatican museums.• The Amanita phalloides, commonly known as the death cap, is a deadly poisonous fungus.
• The death cap is native to Europe, where it is widespread; it is found from the southern coastal regions of Scandinavia in the north to Ireland in the west, east to Poland and western Russia and south throughout the Balkans, in Italy, Spain and Portugal and in Morocco and Algeria in North Africa.
• The mushroom was transported to countries across the southern hemisphere with the importation of hardwoods and conifers.
• These toxic mushrooms resemble several edible species, most notably Caesar’s mushrooms and the straw mushroom.
• The mushroom has been involved in the majority of human deaths from mushroom poisoning.
• Possible victims include Roman Emperor Claudius and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.
• The principal toxic con-stituent is a-amanitin, which damages the liver and kidneys, often fatally.