USDA develops test strip for the type of toxin that causes 90% of sickness and deaths from eating wild mushrooms

Bureau of Land Management photo, via The Counter

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has developed "a simple test strip" that can tell you if a wild mushroom has the type of toxin that is responsible for 90 percent of the illnesses and deaths caused by eating the wild fungi, Jessica Fu reports for The Counter, which says it covers "fact and friction in American food." (It was once known as The New Food Economy.)

Candace Bever, a USDA scientist who worked on developing
the test strip, took a selfie with a "death cap" mushroom.

More than 6,300 Americans got sick from eating toxic mushrooms in 2018, according to the National Poison Data System, Fu reports: "Without immediate treatment, consuming poisonous species can lead to liver damage and even death. And among mushroom-related deaths, medical experts have estimated that around 90 percent are linked to a specific category of toxins known as amatoxins."

The strip developed by USDA scientists "can detect the presence of amatoxins found in wild mushrooms in a matter of minutes—a tool they hope can help foragers avoid food poisoning," Fu writes. "The new technology . . . can detect the common toxins in both urine and mushroom samples at concentrations as low as 10 parts per billion." USDA researcher Candace Bever and her colleagues published their findings in Toxins, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Urine samples can be used by people who get sick after eating mushrooms but no longer have a sample of them. "The long tail of mushroom toxicity gives eaters time to seek medical help, which can be a matter of life and death," Fu explains. The strip can also work on dog urine. "Man’s best friends are a common victim of toxic mushrooms, which they can accidentally eat when roaming outdoors," and are more susceptible to poisoning than humans, and die more quickly, Fu reports.

"You might be wondering when you can buy these mushroom test strips," Fu writes. "Bever tells me that a company named Amatoxtest is already in the process of licensing USDA’s technology for a product expected to hit shelves this coming autumn."