Health authorities have issued an urgent warning to Victorians not to eat wild mushrooms, with two poisonous varieties currently detected growing across the state.
The deputy chief officer for Victoria, Angie Bone, issued a health advisory on Wednesday warning death cap and yellow-staining mushroom varieties were currently growing wild in large numbers.
She said eating just one death cap mushroom could kill an adult.
The Victorian health department advice comes just over a month after a similar warning was issued in the Australian Capital Territory, when a child was hospitalised after ingesting a death cap mushroom.
Three others were also hospitalised in the capital in November 2021 after eating wild mushrooms.
Warnings were also issued in New South Wales after mushrooms sprouted across parks and back yards after the wettest summer in three decades in parts of the state.
The NSW Poisons Information Centre said it had received 73 calls about mushroom exposures in the first three months of 2022. Of the calls, 16 were the result of adults deliberately eating mushrooms. Another 45 were accidental exposures, 80% of which were in children under five.
In May 2020, a Victorian man aged in his 70s died in hospital after consuming deadly mushrooms, while two people died in Canberra in 2012 after eating them at a party on New Year’s Eve.
Symptoms of poisoning can include diarrhoea, nausea, violent stomach pains and vomiting. Even if symptoms subside, serious liver damage may have occurred that may result in death if not treated.
Yellow-staining mushrooms, meanwhile, can cause diarrhoea, severe nausea, stomach cramps and vomiting. The severity of symptoms varies with the amount eaten. Poisoning for either variety generally occur six to 24 hours after ingestion.
Death cap mushrooms grow under oak trees. The caps are 40-160mm in diameter and range in colour from pale yellow-green to olive brown, with the ridges on the underside of the cap coloured white.
Yellow-staining mushrooms look very similar to regular mushrooms or “cultivated mushrooms” and to edible wild mushrooms such as the field mushroom, but are much more common in urban areas. It can grow in large troops in lawns and gardens.
Bone said cooking, peeling or drying the mushrooms would not make the poison inactive. She recommended only buying mushrooms from the supermarket or greengrocer.
If people believe they have eaten a death cap or yellow-staining mushroom, they should urgently attend an emergency department. They should also take any remaining mushroom to the hospital for identification.
Pets could also develop a range of illness from eating wild mushrooms, including gastroenteritis-type syndromes to severe life-threatening disease and death, with dogs more likely than cats to eat them.
Its recommended pet owners take particular care while their animals are in areas where mushrooms may grow, and remove any mushrooms from their yard before they have a chance to eat them. Gloves should be worn when removing and disposing wild mushrooms.
