4 Dead in California Mushroom Poisoning Outbreak

California state health officials are urging people to stop foraging wild mushrooms after the death toll in a poisoning outbreak rose to four and more than three dozen people fell ill since November. From Nov. 18 to Jan. 18 there were 39 cases tied to death cap mushrooms, which can resemble varieties sold in grocery stores; the Western destroying angel is the other highly toxic species that appears in the rainy season.

Typically the state sees five or fewer mushroom poisoning cases a year. The outbreak has largely affected people for whom English is not the primary language. Sixty percent of those poisoned spoke Spanish as their main language; others spoke English, Mandarin, Mixteco, Russian and Ukrainian.

Health officials have distributed fliers in several languages and asked that they be posted in community spaces such as stores and libraries.

United States, California

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