12 ms·
You can say that to any mildly dangerous hobby
by Vilian 1y ago
You can say that to any mildly dangerous hobby
- busterarm 1y agoHow many people in the US do you think actually forage wild plants and fungi? The number of hospitalizations is somewhere around 10k a year. For ~1500 of those it's at least life threatening. ~100ish end up with organ failure or permanent neurological problems. ~10 of them die. That's every year. That might be mildly dangerous compared to other hobbies, but if you isolate for actual practitioners of the hobby, suddenly those numbers look extremely dangerous.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoWhere are you getting your data? Is this a specific country/worldwide/what? If you're just talking about the US, a quick Google search shows your numbers are off by a few orders of magnitude. This article from the CDC estimated 100 hospitalizations for mushrooms in the US in 2016: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010a1.htm Foraging for mushrooms is not dangerous if you know what you're doing and stick to easily identified mushrooms that aren't easily confused with poisonous varieties.
- busterarm 1y agoAAPCC annual reports, linked to from an actual mushroom foraging guide. Also I said plants and mushrooms. Not specifically mushrooms. AAPCC doesn't track mushrooms separately and I would consider the CDC to not be the authority on poisoning -- their specialty is diseases.
- adamweld 1y agoHere's the relevant section from the 2023 National Poison Data System: https://i.imgur.com/vIXenG8.png https://i.imgur.com/vIXenG8.png 8294 case mentions, 3039 hospitalizations. for outcomes check the table.
- owenversteeg 1y agoHuh, that is quite interesting, thank you. Looks like that includes the hallucinogenic mushrooms, which leads to 2139 case mentions and 1146 hospitalizations a year.