There’s been a spike in the number of people in Australia being poisoned by eating wild mushrooms, with authorities warning ingesting the wild fungi can be fatal.
Fourteen people in New South Wales (NSW) have presented at emergency departments suffering the symptoms of wild mushroom poisoning between April 29 and May 19, NSW Health said.
Nine of those cases occurred in just the past week, with three people having to be admitted to the hospital.
Between May 1 and May 18, the NSW Poisons Information Centre received 56 calls about mushroom exposure, with 37 cases related to foraging for mushrooms or mushrooms being ingested for recreational purposes.
Genevieve Adamo from the NSW Poisons Information Centre said constant moisture from the wet weather in NSW this year had extended the wild mushroom season.
“The dampness provides excellent growing conditions for wild mushrooms, but it is often difficult to recognise edible from poisonous mushrooms,” Adamo said.
“Mushrooms picked in the wild can make you very ill and could be lethal.”
Cooking or boiling wild mushrooms does not make them safe to eat, with the Death Cap mushroom potentially causing fatal organ damage.
In Australia, many of the poisonous mushrooms look similar to edible wild mushrooms that are found in both Europe and Asia.
“There is no reliable way to identify mushrooms picked in the wild, so it’s best to completely avoid picking or eating wild mushrooms. It is simply not worth the risk,” Adamo said.
