PEOPLE have been warned to avoid eating wild mushrooms following a recent spike in reported poisonings.
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NSW Poisons Information Centre co-head Genevieve Adamo issued the warning after eight poisoning hospitalisations and 39 mushroom ingestion-related calls to the NSW Poisons Information Centre in one week.
Ms Adamo said five of the people were hospitalised after intentionally eating mushrooms foraged from fields.
"If not properly identified, mushrooms picked in the wild can make you very ill and could be lethal, so people should only eat shop-bought mushrooms. Cooking or boiling wild mushrooms does not make them safe to eat," she said.
"Poisonous mushrooms can cause severe abdominal pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating, confusion and hallucinations. Some varieties of mushrooms can cause severe kidney and liver damage, and some can be fatal."
