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A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

cleveland.com

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Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#61

Post by bombcar »

nkurz wrote: post #44

Since no one has done it yet, I'll ask the obvious question about the FDA: how many people die or need a liver transplant each year because the FDA is being unreasonable here? Here's some quotes from the article: Approximately 40% of people who ingest the deadly Amanita mushrooms die or require a liver transplant, according to Dr. Pierre Gholam, the liver specialist at University Hospitals who treated Hickman. ... Th…

With a 72 hour window it sounds simpler to bundle the patient in a plane to Europe.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#62

Post by micro_cam »

mordechai9000 wrote: post #53
aGHz wrote: post #47

Several comments here advise getting a good mushroom identification book instead of relying on plant id apps for foraging. Do you have any recommendations? And more generally, how would you go about assessing the trustworthiness of any such book?

Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora Edit: this is the definitive resource for serious amateur mushroom enthusiasts in North America. It has a wealth of information on understanding the identifying characteristics of mushrooms, as well as keys to aid in the identification of many common genera and species. It's one of those books I find entertaining just to open and read at random. YMMV.

This is the Bible. his pocket guide is great as well and much easier to carry. he himself is quite the legend as well.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#63

Post by [deleted] »

DangitBobby wrote: post #52
smegsicle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a mushroom identification app that doesn't draw attention to toxic lookalikes sounds pretty close to criminally negligent

And this is why we can't have nice things. This opinion is wild to me. You do not trust a consumer app with life and death decisions, especially over something where the potential upside is getting to eat a mushroom you found and the potential downside is death. Making more criminals is not the answer.

[deleted]

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#64

Post by pfdietz »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #23

That seems like one of the problems that can be solved with technology, i.e. by using - machine learning could be used to visually identify fungi - Portable DNA sequencing devices i.e. nanopore? https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion

This sounds like a problem that can be solved by

- not eating wild mushrooms

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#65

Post by colechristensen »

chernofool wrote: post #18
neilv wrote: post #11

> When the app matched his photos of the backyard mushrooms with an edible species, [...] it almost killed him. Now there's an app that'd have to be designed very conscientiously.

Most plant ID apps have a disclaimer saying that you should never eat anything that you use the app to identify. Seek reminds you every time you open the camera. They're mostly intended as entertainment, but some of them use the data to analyze where species are growing in realtime.

Honestly though there should be limits to the amount that a disclaimer should be able to protect you when your product advises people to do dangerous things you know (or have every responsibility to know) could be lethal.

There’s a lot of room between a one in a billion mistake that hurts somebody and a fifty fifty chance a mushroom is poisonous. There are plenty of edible vs deadly mushrooms that only have incredibly subtle differences that you should trust nobody but a human expert to identify.

Effectively what I’m saying is a disclaimer shouldn’t be able to get you out of murder charges for a game of Russian roulette.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#66

Post by pfdietz »

chrisgd wrote: post #16

Why do people like eating mushrooms from the woods? How much of it is the potential risk? There are plenty of options at the grocery store.

I know, right? What's the upside? Possibly interesting flavor. What's the downside. AGONY AND DEATH.

Why is this even a question?

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#68

Post by ceejayoz »

colechristensen wrote: post #58
nkurz wrote: post #44

Since no one has done it yet, I'll ask the obvious question about the FDA: how many people die or need a liver transplant each year because the FDA is being unreasonable here? Here's some quotes from the article: Approximately 40% of people who ingest the deadly Amanita mushrooms die or require a liver transplant, according to Dr. Pierre Gholam, the liver specialist at University Hospitals who treated Hickman. ... Th…

Couldn’t the patient just take a bunch of the milk thistle supplements available at most pharmacies?

"derived from the milk thistle plant" likely involves more than just "eat some powered plant"; Wikipedia seems to indicate it involves more purification steps than the supplement form of things.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#69

Post by dmitrybrant »

I've been foraging mushrooms for 30+ years, and I triple-check every single specimen before cooking it. The idea of a novice forager using an app to identify mushrooms is... unconscionable! Like... breathtakingly stupid.

I've commented on this before, but it continues to baffle me how poorly-educated our public is about wild plants, berries, and mushrooms. And stories like this just perpetuate the fear (and stigma?) around foraging, when in fact there's a whole universe of flavors and textures to be had from wild mushrooms that are simply better, and more fun, than the grocery store.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#70

Post by kaitai »

antx wrote: post #4
changoplatanero wrote: post #2

Mushroom foraging sounds really fun but I’m too scared to eat anything that I find.

There's no wiggle room. You need to be 1000% certain of identification, if you decide to eat a mushroom. That's how I've been doing it for the last decade. I forage a lot of mushrooms, but don't consume anything I'm not sure of. Also, there are "beginner" mushrooms, that don't have any dangerous look-alikes, such as the famous "chicken of the woods" (laetiporus sulphureus). You can't really go wrong with mushroom lik…

"There are old mushroom hunters, there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters."
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