cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39826218
California officials are warning foragers after an outbreak of poisoning linked to wild mushrooms that has killed one adult and caused severe liver damage in several patients, including children.
The state poison control system has identified 21 cases of amatoxin poisoning, likely caused by death cap mushrooms, the health department said Friday. The toxic wild mushrooms are often mistaken for edible ones because of their appearance and taste.
“Death cap mushrooms contain potentially deadly toxins that can lead to liver failure,” Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “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.”
All mushrooms are safe to handle with bare hands. Sure, if you’ve spent the whole day groping death caps you might want to rinse off but you really don’t need to wash after touching a mushroom. You actually have to ingest to be poisoned. As far as I know, spores are only harmful if the get into the lungs regularly over a prolonged period and that goes for all spores, not just ones from toxic mushrooms.
yeah, it’s all safe through the skin. It’s just that you can always accidentally scratch an eye, or something along the lines. Furthermore, there are toddlers (that’s why I’m a bit overly careful here, lol) that just mess things up randomly, like lick their/your hands, put things in places they shouldn’t be. We don’t really even know for certain how dangerous spores are too, all known cases could be explained by other delivery methods IMO, but is it really worth the risk when being safe on this stage is trivial?
Definitely worth the risk for me, I can’t improve my skills let alone ID a mushroom if I don’t pick it up and get a good look. If you aren’t comfortable with it that’s fine but telling people to just not touch mushrooms doesn’t help anyone because no one has ever died or become sick from touching a mushroom.
Mostly you want to wash your hands because mushrooms tend to be covered in dirt/leaves/duff.
Yeah, I can do all that but I draw the line at larvae, as dumb as that sounds. Irrational fear, but I’m getting better haha
I get ya, I’ve dropped several mushrooms because a surprise slug on the bottom was a little too close to my finger.