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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

#181

Post by varsketiz »

WalterBright wrote: post #93
dmitrybrant wrote: post #69

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?)…

If I was an expert, I still wouldn't eat them after triple-checking them. I don't think they taste so good that they're worth any risk. It's not like they're chocolate.

If you were an expert your risk perception would change.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#182

Post by refurb »

BurningFrog wrote: post #114
roywiggins wrote: post #88

"Gholam says that the process of FDA approval for Silibinin is slow, primarily because it only works for amatoxin poisoning, from the Amanita mushroom species. Those poisonings are rare – so gathering enough data to satisfy the safety and efficacy requirements of the FDA takes time." Okay, but there must be data, since the EU approved it based on something, right?

Sure, a rational version of FDA would accept it based on EU approval data. But that's not the FDA we have.

You mean like when Europe approved thalidomide but the US said “just because they approved it isn’t good enough” and saved tens of thousands of babies from birth defects?

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#183

Post by methyl »

alkonaut wrote: post #174

Just go after a specific kind of mushroom and one that doesn’t have any close lookalikes and it’s very easy to safely pick mushrooms. Next level up from picking a single one is to pick a few known kinds which all have distinct features that can’t be confused with others. I pick only boletus, chanterellus (which has a bad lookalike in North America but it’s not really that close and where I am in Europe there is no re…

There is a lookalike for chanterellus in Europe: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#184

Post by creepycrawler »

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.

Instead of a general mushroom identification app, it could be a poisonous mushroom identification app. The dataset would only include poisonous mushrooms, and it will be made clear that it is not exhaustive. This could be useful to rule out some mushrooms.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#185

Post by dzhiurgis »

cinntaile wrote: post #171
dzhiurgis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chanterelle How do you cook them? They are pretty cheap here so I tried number of times this summer and found the flavour just not worth the cleanup hassle. Maybe they are different in NA. IIRC the traditional method here is to boil them and then cook with bacon and onion, so chances of their flavour is 0.

Fry them in butter and put them on a piece of toast.

Tried exactly that, def there’s nice mild flavour, but personally not worth the hassle.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#186

Post by sacrosancty »

inkblotuniverse wrote: post #108
rblatz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is the only way to reliably make available a drug that is used nationwide on average less than 5 times a year? Most hospitals wouldn’t stock a drug that they’d likely never use. By keeping stock centralized at the FDA they can keep enough on hand and rubber stamp the exception.

Keeping emergency stocks of rarely-used drugs is fine, but you don't have to make it illegal for anyone else to stock that drug to accomplish that.

Isn't the whole idea of requiring FDA approval to protect patients from harmful or ineffective drugs? If having and administering whatever drugs you wanted was legal, then how can anyone be protected? No doubt, they're still getting around to approving it but are just too slow and have this exception process precisely to save people's lives until they get it done properly.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#187

Post by peer2pay »

methyl wrote: post #183
alkonaut wrote: post #174

Just go after a specific kind of mushroom and one that doesn’t have any close lookalikes and it’s very easy to safely pick mushrooms. Next level up from picking a single one is to pick a few known kinds which all have distinct features that can’t be confused with others. I pick only boletus, chanterellus (which has a bad lookalike in North America but it’s not really that close and where I am in Europe there is no re…

There is a lookalike for chanterellus in Europe: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca

Yes, but this one is fairly easily distinguished and will also not harm you unless consumed in great quantities.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#188

Post by boppo1 »

derefr wrote: post #135
Aloha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gholam says that the process of FDA approval for Silibinin is slow, primarily because it only works for amatoxin poisoning, from the Amanita mushroom species. Those poisonings are rare – so gathering enough data to satisfy the safety and efficacy requirements of the FDA takes time. And there is little financial incentive by the company that owns the drug to invest in its research and development." Incidentally, thes…

My question is: why does the FDA need to (get domestic pharma companies to) conduct its own studies here? If the drug has been used in Europe for 30 years, presumably there are 30 years of evidence in European clinical practice that can be used as evidence. Maybe even existing meta-analyses of said evidence in European medical journals. Why isn't that sufficient?

I'd trust European data more than , say chinese or pakistani data. However, that kind of exclusivity is politically untenable.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#189

Post by alkonaut »

methyl wrote: post #183
alkonaut wrote: post #174

Just go after a specific kind of mushroom and one that doesn’t have any close lookalikes and it’s very easy to safely pick mushrooms. Next level up from picking a single one is to pick a few known kinds which all have distinct features that can’t be confused with others. I pick only boletus, chanterellus (which has a bad lookalike in North America but it’s not really that close and where I am in Europe there is no re…

There is a lookalike for chanterellus in Europe: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca

Yes, but not one I worry about. It’s both not known to be very poisonous (it’s surely eaten quite a lot) and it’s very easily distinguished from the real thing.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#190

Post by colechristensen »

uwagar wrote: post #134
colechristensen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 incredibl…

>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. By your logic knife makers will all be praying that their knives arent used for killing or harming people or they'd be charged for murder.

This isn’t at all the case.

These identification apps are selling incomplete information where the need for full information about toxins is obvious.

Nobody was ever surprised that a knife hurt somebody or had cause to accuse a knife maker that their product could cut things in a way a consumer wouldn’t know about.

The issue isn’t that a tool can be harmful but that a danger to the producer of a product would be obligated to know and share isn’t obvious to the consumer without previous knowledge. If you’re selling information you must know your audience.

Any human teaching you to identify mushrooms will teach you about the risks of poison right away. “I didn’t tell you what you needed to know but you should have known better” only works when it’s reasonable for you to know better. General audience mushroom identifiers shouldn’t be expected to know how easily a misidentification could kill them, plus it’s just not difficult to do.

This doesn’t match the situation with knives unless you can find me someone who really does need to be warned about knives and isn’t, say, 4 years old.

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