Bonfire of the quangos: death cap edition...

You'd think that the bureaucrats at the Food Standards Agency would be firmly in boffin mode and keeping their heads down, but no. Today it's reported they are warning us to be careful when picking wild food and opining that children should not be allowed to pick blackberries without adult supervision.

"A spokeswoman for the FSA said figures from the Health Protection Agency showed its National Poison Information Service – used by doctors and patients – dealt with 209 enquiries relating to mushrooms this year, compared to 123 in the whole of last year."

An interesting justification for this kind of thing, and one that I'd suggest doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. For example let's look at two recent instances of mushroom poisoning in the UK (which incidentally is very rare, very few people eat death caps these days surprisingly enough).

Exhibit one: Mrs Tuckey, who ate the death caps her niece picked for her in the Isle of Wight Botanical Gardens:

'Mike Tuckey told the Newport hearing: 'I knew they had picked some mushrooms and I told my wife she was not to eat them. She told me the ones they had picked were the same as ones she had picked a few days earlier so I said it was OK.' Mrs Tuckey, known as Juny, cooked the mushrooms and had half a plateful, while her niece had three or four.

So her husband explicitly told her not to eat the death caps, but she was having none of it and gobbled up half a plateful of them. Would a government health warning have made any difference here?

He added: 'The paramedics were asking what she had eaten and I asked her about the mushrooms. 'Juny said it was the sausages. 'I think that was because she thought I would be angry after initially telling her not to eat the mushrooms.' Paramedics decided Mrs Tuckey was suffering from food poisoning ...

Then she lied about eating the death caps to the paramedics, and now she is dead.

Exhibit 2: 12 year old Lucy Adock, who ate two death caps raw, after finding them whilst out riding her bike.

The schoolgirl added: ‘When I go out on my bike I always look out for blackberries, wild plums and mushrooms.' [her Mother added] ‘She knows quite a bit about mushrooms as we live out in the countryside but this time had forgotten to take her mushroom book with her.’

Thankfully Lucy survived and made a full recovery. But come on, she can't have known that much about mushrooms if she goes around eating death caps! But her Mother was obviously of the view her little angel knew enough about them not to eat raw death caps whilst out on her bike. Would a government health warning have changed her mind?

REGULATORY NOTICE: DEATH CAPS CAN CAUSE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE EATEN DEATH CAPS CALL 999 AND DON'T BLAME THE SAUSAGES, NO MATTER HOW ANGRY YOU THINK YOUR PARTNER MIGHT BE.