Posted on 04/19/2025 6:54:02 PM PDT by Red Badger
The inhabitants of Montchavin in the French Alps knew something was killing them. They just didn't know what.
Some wondered whether lead from a disused mine in the village had leaked into the water supply. Others thought mobile phone masts were to blame. One woman believed the area was cursed.
Between 1991 and 2019, 16 people – almost a tenth of the area's 200-strong population – were diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal condition more commonly known as motor neurone disease (MND).
In other words, if you lived in Montchavin, you were 20 times more likely to contract MND than anywhere else in Europe.
This hideous disease causes the body's nervous system to shut down, slowly paralysing the patient until they are unable to breathe. Tragically, there is no cure or treatment.
As the cases piled up and the death toll rose, French scientists tried to track down what was causing this unprecedented cluster. Finally, in 2019, they stumbled across a shocking possible conclusion.
Could it be that a rare toxic mushroom – considered a delicacy in Montchavin – was to blame?
In the latest twist to this extraordinary story, the Mail can today reveal that the only known MND patient still alive from the Montchavin area is a British man named Steve Isaac.
In 2009, Steve was given two years to live. But, like the late scientist Stephen Hawking who lived with MND for 55 years, he has defied medical science despite being fully paralysed except for his eyes. But more on Steve later.
For now, this is the remarkable story of Montchavin: the cursed village over-run by a 'plague' for which there was seemingly no explanation.
Dr Valerie Foucault served as the only GP in her adopted hometown of Montchavin since the early 1990s.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What are the odds that Lou Gehrig would die from Lou Gehrig’s Disease?
I hate when that happens.
The mushrooms we consume come from a regular store.
Many moons ago, I was part of a Bay Area archaeology excavation. I arrived early to the site one day, and a young Skull Full Of Mush was looking at a bunch of wild mushrooms. As he was about to consume one, I screamed loud enough that he did not eat it. When the professor arrived, I took him aside so as not to embarrass the idiot in front of everyone. The professor thanked me, and sent the idiot back to the lab.
Death Cap, AKA ‘Fly Amanita’ Amanita muscaria?................
In the past Europeans and Asian immigrants would sometimes get violently ill or die from foraging for mushrooms. Often it was the Destroying Angel. Without an organ transplant recovery is very unlikely.
It was the salmon mousse...
Anyone who eats a mushroom should have their head examined.
That mushroom destroys the liver; however it seems like the European hobby of picking your own ‘shrooms kills several people every year.
“ Anyone who eats a mushroom should have their head examined.”
Stuff them with cream cheese artichoke dip, put bread crumbs over them and bake
Good stuff
Or that Grant would be buried in Grant’s tomb...
Some of the victims have never eaten the mushrooms, but perhaps inhaling the spores is the culprit.
I like that song by
Wilson Pickett, “Mushroom Sally.”
But I didn’t have the salmon mousse!
I’m a mushroom forager but there’s no way I’d ever eat an iffy shroom. False morels and thimble caps are in that category and are too be avoided. There are only a dozen or so proven safe wild mushrooms in my locale. I stick with those exclusively.
I think it’s more likely to be a parasite picked up while foraging, rather than the mushrools themselves.
Written as a human nature story…pass on the link.
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