Mushrooms Leave Couple Seriously Ill

Two Vancouver residents were hospitalized Friday after accidentally eating the so-called “death cap” mushroom, one of the most poisonous fungi in the country.

Vera Mishchuk, 32, was in critical condition and her husband, Alex Mishchuk, 32, was in serious condition Friday night at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Warm, wet weather has brought a bumper crop of the sometimes-deadly Amanita phalloides, or “death cap,” mushrooms. And poison experts are warning that mistakes in gathering wild mushrooms can be deadly.

In October 1988, five Portland-area residents were poisoned when they ate a stir-fry dish containing the “death cap” mushroom.

Four of the five required liver transplants, and the fifth recovered without a transplant.

The active ingredient in the mushroom is aminitin, a substance that binds chemically with enzymes that form part of the genetic code in liver cells. In the most severe cases, death results from liver failure.

The toxin is insidious because symptoms don’t appear for six to 12 hours, until the liver begins dying.

By that time, Horowitz said, liver damage can be irreversible.

He said victims often mistake mushroom poisoning for run-of-the-mill food poisoning and don’t seek medical help right away.

Janet E. Lindgren, who chairs the toxicology committee of the Oregon Mycological Society, said the weather has been “ideal” for Amanita phalloides.

“Normally, the mushroom fruits in the fall,” she said.

The mushroom normally is found around chestnut and filbert trees.

Lindgren said the fungus travels in soil around the trees’ roots.

She described Amanita phalloides as usually a greenish yellow with brown coloring near the center of the cap. However, she said, young buttons can be nearly white.