California Extreme Weather Impacts

Since Nov. 18, California health officials have reported nearly 40 poisonings from Death Cap mushrooms — including four deaths and three liver transplants — with patients aged 19 months to 67 years often requiring ICU care for acute liver failure. Officials say a warm fall and early rains have produced a "super bloom" of these mushrooms in parks and forests (often under oak trees), leading people to mistake them for familiar edible varieties; health authorities, noting many cases involved Spanish speakers, have expanded warnings in Spanish, Mixteco and Mandarin and are urging the public not to forage wild mushrooms.