RealjohnnTop Russian space scientist dies of mushroom poisoning
As someone from East EU, this is actually plausibly accidental, though the timeline is suspicious.
Mushroom foraging is cultural, you can buy foraged mushrooms in farmers markets and in general it is a fairly popular leisure activity to go foraging in the woods.
I hardly know anyone over 50 who isn’t excited for the mushroom season, sometimes people do end up picking up a death cap as it can be mistaken for a couple different edible ones at its various stages of growth, though you have to be fairly inattentive to do so. That said we treat a couple of poisonings a year in our toxicoligy ward.
Yeah, but foraging for wild mushrooms is something y'all are taught from a very young age. You're taught what kinds are safe to eat, and what ones to absolutely avoid. I highly doubt anyone with a scientific background would just randomly eat mushrooms without positive identifications.
Given that this is Russia, he probably refused to stand near any windows and had an affinity for wild mushrooms so someone took advantage of the situation lol
Iirc it is the russula that is commonly confused for the deathcap and its variations (amanita) people usually report feeling like they have confused for amanita.
The russula is a very common one to forage and I can kind of see the resemblance, but I also have not encountered an amanita that is too convincing at passing for russula, at least to me, especially if you actually look beyond the cap. So realistically you are right, I don’t really feel like you could forage the wrong one with experience, but people from all different backgrounds still manage to do it with a certain regularity, which is why I say this is plausible as an accident. It feels like too much work and they would probably have to cook the medical record since he was probably in the hospital for a bit before he died.