Midwest sees surge in calls to poison control centers amid bumper crop of wild mushrooms
MINNEAPOLIS — The warm, humid summer across much of the Midwest has produced a record harvest of wild mushrooms and an increase in calls to poison control centers.
At the Minnesota Regional Poison Control Center, Calls from April through July were up 150% from the same period last year, said Samantha Lee, the center’s director. The center received 90 calls for possible exposures during that time, compared with 26 calls for the same months in 2023. Exposures include people who have actual or suspected contact with potentially poisonous mushrooms and who may or may not develop symptoms, she said.
The cases can include children who don’t know what they’re doing and foragers who make mistakes, she said. But those numbers don’t include people who are just curious about whether the mushrooms sprouting from their garden are edible.
“Fortunately, these are usually mild symptoms,” Lee said. “A lot of these are mushrooms that were in the garden or in nearby parks. A lot of these cause stomach upset, vomiting and diarrhea, but every year we get a few cases that are serious.”
The situation appears to be similar in wetter areas of the country this spring and summer. Kait Brown, clinical director of America’s Poison Centers said calls across all states and territories increased by 26% from April to June.
“There are probably a few areas in the country that are seeing high numbers of cases that could be related to different weather patterns,” Brown said, but she said her office doesn’t have state data to determine exactly where.
The Minnesota Poison Center warned this month that wild mushrooms can be difficult for the untrained eye to identify. Common types that typically cause milder symptoms include the small brown mushrooms that grow in gardens and the small white mushrooms that can form “fairy rings,” Brown said. But there are also some deadly types growing in the area, including one known colloquially as the “death angel” or “destroying angel.” They can cause liver failure.
Foraging for edible wild mushrooms has become increasingly popular in recent years, even before the pandemic, according to Peter Martignacco, president of the Minnesota Mycological Society.
“The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area itself is having a great year for mushrooms due to the previous few years of severe drought, followed by this year’s extremely wet and cool spring, with consistent moisture thereafter,” said Tim Clemens, a professional forager and educator who serves as a consultant for the Minnesota Poison Center.
The best way to learn what’s safe is to go out with an experienced mushroom hunter, said Martignacco, whose group regularly organizes trips around the state. While there are good guides, identification apps can be inaccurate and there are guides generated by artificial intelligence that are “notoriously useless,” Clemens said. The misleading information can lead people to make very serious mistakes, he added.
“I don’t know what motivates them to eat something if you don’t know what it is, but some people do,” he said.