Four people have died after eating poisonous Death Cap mushrooms in California, which have spread after a rainy winter.
A further three have also been left needing liver transplants after consuming the mushrooms, as the state’s public health department has urged people to avoid foraging altogether.
In a health warning, the body said at least three dozen cases of mushroom poisoning have been reported since 18 November, which “greatly exceeds the typical report of less than 5 cases” per year.
The health department added that many who ate the Death Cap mushrooms suffered from rapidly evolving acute liver injury and liver failure, and that the victims have ranged in age from 19 months to 67 years old.
The mushrooms have been seen in local and national parks across Northern California and the Central Coast, and clusters have also been identified in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay areas.
Named amanita phalloides, the mushrooms look similar to safe and edible varieties such as the Caesar’s and Paddy Straw. They typically spread in the autumn and winter.
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According to foraging website Wild Food UK, the symptoms of eating a Death Cap can start several hours after ingestion, and include severe vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pains.
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In serious cases, symptoms can return after several days and end in death from kidney and liver failure.
Craig Smollin, a medical director at the California Poison Control System, told the Associated Press that Death Cap mushrooms tend to flourish in the state between November and March, though not usually to this extent.
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, Laura Marcelino said that her family in the Northern California town of Salinas gathered mushrooms that looked like the ones she and her husband used to forage in their native Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico.
“We thought it was safe,” Ms Marcelino, 36, told the outlet in Spanish. The next day, her husband was dizzy and tired, but Marcelino felt fine, and they ate the mushrooms again.
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The day after that, both adults, seasonal farmworkers, started vomiting and stayed home from work.
Ms Marcelino subsequently spent five days in the hospital, while her husband had to undergo a liver transplant.
