veggie () 01/15/05 12:17 AM

Re: Local residents ill after wild mushroom ingestion

Poisonous mushrooms ID?d as Death Cap Friday, January 14, 2005 Amador Ledger Dispatch The wild mushrooms ingested by seven Amador County residents have been positively identified as Amanita phalloides, also known as the Death Cap mushroom. The seven were hospitalized the last week of December - five at Sutter Amador Hospital and two in San Francisco - after eating the wild mushrooms. All seven have since been released from the hospital and all are expected to make full recoveries. According to county health officials, the wild mushrooms were picked locally and were ingested after cooking and all seven people experienced gastric symptoms within 12 hours of ingestion. The symptoms involved included nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The hospitalizations lasted from two to three days. California Poison Control was contacted and worked closely with staff from Sutter Amador Hospital in Jackson and Amador County Public Health to coordinate treatment. Dr. Michael Davis, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, performed DNA analysis of fragments of the mushrooms. ?These were definitely the Death Cap mushrooms,? he said. ?The patients were lucky.? -------------------- All mushrooms are edible.....once.