WARNING – If you don’t know if they’re mushrooms, don’t eat them!
HEALTH authorities in Canberra say the meal which contained death cap mushrooms that killed two people was prepared in a commercial kitchen.
The ACT Health Directorate says the food was for a private meal and no food containing the poisonous mushrooms was given to any member of the public.
In a statement, the authority said the premises in Canberra have been inspected and there is no risk of exposure to the public.
A 52-year-old woman died and a 38-year-old woman died in hospital in Sydney yesterday after eating the meal.
A 51-year-old man remains in a critical but stable condition at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, reportedly waiting for a liver transplant.
ACT Health said a fourth person who was initially treated for mushrooms poisoning in Sydney was not part of the group.
It said there were four people at the meal in Canberra, but one of them did not eat the mushrooms and remains well.
The mushrooms often grow near oak trees, and are found when there is warm, wet weather.
A fully-grown death cap mushroom cap is silky smooth, and its colour varies from white to greenish-brown.
Mushrooms expert, National Botanic Gardens honorary scientific associate Heino Lepp, told Fairfax media even experts sometimes struggled to tell death caps from edible mushrooms.
Mycologist Dr Brett Summerell, director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, says death cap mushrooms, also known as Amanita phalloides, are possibly the most toxic in Australia.
He said death caps can be mistaken for straw mushrooms commonly used in Asian cuisine.
They often grow side-by-side with common edible mushrooms, but can be recognised by their white gills.
Dr Summerell said people who eat the mushroom often experienced symptoms similar to food poisoning – including nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting – between six and 16 hours after ingesting them.
“The patients appear to recover after that event, and then a few days later they’ll go again into that nausea and vomiting syndrome, plus jaundice.
“Quite often, as it sounds like in this case, the end result can be death – hence the name of the mushroom – or a need to do a liver transplant.” The fatality rate for people who eat death cap mushrooms is believed to be between 25 per cent and 50 per cent.
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