Four people have died and three others have required liver transplants after eating the aptly named death cap mushroom that is proliferating in California following a rainy winter.
The California Department of Public Health is urging people to avoid mushroom foraging altogether this year because death cap mushrooms are easily confused with safe, edible varieties.
Since Nov. 18 there have been more than three dozen cases of death cap poisonings reported, including the four deaths and three liver transplants, according to the health department. Many who sought medical attention suffered from rapidly evolving acute liver injury and liver failure. Several patients required admission to an intensive care unit. They have ranged in age from 19 months to 67 years old.
The death cap is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world and is part of a small group of mushrooms containing amatoxins, which are highly potent compounds causing 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings globally. They are in city parks and in forests, often under oak trees.
No, I kept it simple and gave broad, easy to digest guidelines for staying safe if you’re a casual browser who doesn’t know a lot. It was a well-received comment according to votes. Your comment came off contentious and pedantic and was not as well received. This is about communication not textbooks.
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to be pedantic when death is on the line.
Nobody is going to learn everything they need to be safe from making mistakes in mushroom collecting on a fucking Lemmy post. So I kept my pointers broad and applicable to a large swath of people and situations. My margin is towards safety.
I sure as shit ain’t going to tell people “No no, you really can tell poison mushrooms apart by taste” like some people here are insisting. This isn’t a place for exploring nuance.
I’m not saying that you should give better advice. Just don’t shit on other people for providing some nuance.
I gave safety instructions passed on to me by a mycologist, he shat on my message for not being detailed and nuanced enough, when people have already died from eating wild mushrooms. It’s not a place to debate fine details if people aren’t knowledgeable and experienced.
I didn’t shit on his message, he (or your alt, whichever is going on here) shit on mine, and proved my last point, which is i’ve done this rodeo before and there’s always some nut obsessed with “getting the details and science perfect from a hobbyist perspective” which just confuses people who might be curious to try but don’t know the details and facts to stay safe.
Nobody has a problem with you giving the only advice on this subject that you are qualified to give. No one thinks you should say more on the subject at all. Just because you aren’t qualified to expand on what has been said doesn’t mean that you are justified in shutting down further discussion or should be immune to criticism.