Free Republic

It's the kind of story a mystery novelist might conjure. But for months, a real murder case has been playing out in a small Australian town where three people died after eating a family meal that was suspected to contain poisonous death cap mushrooms. The prime suspect in Leongatha, a country town some 84 miles southeast of Melbourne in Victoria, has long been seen as Erin Patterson, who hosted the lunch in late July whose four guests quickly fell gravely ill. The menu included a beef Wellington dish that Patterson said included mushrooms. Police arrested Patterson on Thursday; she...

, the death cap mushroom. (Archenzo/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0) In spite of being responsible for over 90 percent of mushroom-related fatalities around the world, we still don't know why the death cap mushroom is as lethal as it is. Which makes it a little difficult to discover ways to prevent its toxic effects. Fortunately, scientists may have now identified a substance that could work as an antidote for poisoning by the famously deadly mushroom, Amanita phalloides. In even better news, the candidate, called indocyanine green, is already FDA approved and used as a dye for medical diagnostic imaging. A research...

A bumper crop of deadly wild "death cap" mushrooms in northern California is likely to blame for the poisonings of 14 people in December, health officials say. The culprit: Amanita phalloides, believed to be the world's most dangerous mushroom. All 14 recovered, but three required liver transplants, and a toddler suffered permanent brain damage, the researchers reported. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone picking wild mushrooms have them evaluated by a specialist before eating them.(snip) The 14 people described in the report had eaten wild mushrooms they picked themselves or received from others.(snip) After eating...