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Putting the fun in fungi
Apr 24, 2024
An example of a giant puffball mushroom found by Dave Paton.
Provided
SALISBURY — Dave Paton, a dedicated hunter of wild mushrooms, went through a list of some of his favorite fungi at the Scoville Memorial Library Saturday, April 20.
Paton’s talk was sponsored by the Salisbury Association Land Trust.
“All wild mushrooms are deadly. Don’t touch them,” he began, tongue firmly in cheek.
“But if you find any, my email is…”
Paton said most wild mushrooms are inedible, but not necessarily poisonous.
He first got interested in mushrooms as a youth, prowling around the grounds at the Sharon Audubon Center.
Someone pointed out a Destroying Angel mushroom, adding an admonition: “One bite could kill you.”
Young David’s reaction to this stern warning?
“Awesome.”
He mentioned Amanita muscaria as a mushroom with hallucinogenic effects.
Some people go to considerable lengths to tap into this.
“They feed it to reindeer, and then drink the reindeer urine” he announced, adding hastily, “I’ve never tried it because I don’t have a reindeer.”
Some of Paton’s more conventional favorites are King Bolete, or “porcini” in Italian. “Delicious.”
Chicken of the Woods, which Paton said is one of the “Foolproof Five.”
He amended that description.
“More like fool-resistant.”
Chicken of the Woods should be cooked, he continued, and specimens growing on hemlock trees should be avoided altogether. But samples growing on other hardwoods can be eaten if cooked.
He listed Fried Chicken of the Woods and Pulled Chicken of the Woods sandwiches as particular favorites.
Paton urged caution at several points during the talk. He said he consults multiple sources and other experts on a regular basis before ingesting any wild mushrooms.
Paton said he is always looking for the yellow morel. “It’s elusive, so hard to find.”
One to avoid is the Jack-O-Lantern. “It’s extremely toxic. Probably won’t kill you but for two or three days you’ll wish you were dead.”
The first wild mushroom he ever ate was a giant puffball. The photo showed a bulbous white object that was bigger than the woven collection basket next to it.
“I’m gonna need a bigger basket.”
He said he makes “puffball parmigiana” with them.
Paton’s remarks were accompanied by excellent color photographs on the library’s big screen television.
“My iPhone is filled up with pictures of grandchildren and mushrooms.”
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Homelessness on unsteady ground
Apr 24, 2024
Makeshift beds under the highway in the north end of Hartford.
Jose Vega
Occasionally, and perhaps even more frequently nowadays, we are forced to see the big picture. This happened a week or so ago, when the ground shook beneath us, sending many straight to Google, updating our knowledge of tectonic plates, the Richter scale and appropriate earthquake crisis response. It re-centered us, understanding that our day-to-day always relies on a greater stability, one which we are often denied.
I find the same to be true in our housing crisis. Currently, at a time in which homelessness has increased by 14% since 2021 in Connecticut and nearly 1,000 people are sleeping outside because our homeless response system does not have a bed, a chair or even standing room in a warming center or shelter to offer them, a case currently before the Supreme Court has the ability to set us back decades in the work to eradicate unsheltered homelessness and solve all forms of homelessness.
On Monday, April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the most significant Supreme Court case about the rights of people experiencing homelessness in decades.
In this case, the Supreme Court will determine whether a local government can arrest or fine people for sleeping outside when adequate shelter is not available. The rights of people experiencing homelessness have been protected under the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment (Martin v. Boise) since 2009. Our hope is that the Supreme Court will uphold the decision of lower courts and retain the rights of unhoused Americans.
However, if the alternative happens and the decision of the lower court is overturned, the case has the potential to make homelessness worse in our local communities.
To be clear, we all should be held accountable for any known and intentional violation of the law; however, expanding the definition of criminal activity to include deep poverty and homelessness does more damage to a community at-large than good.
Last year, the number of people that became homeless for the first time rose by 25% nationally. This is directly attributable to the lack of housing options for households at all income levels.
State research on just how many homes are needed in Connecticut to match the demand tallies the affordable housing shortage at 169,400 units for low-income residents and 101,600 homes for middle-income residents. Are the two out of three households who cannot live in a unit they can afford criminals? Certainly not.
Criminalization is not a solution to homelessness. Arrests, fines, jail time and criminal records make it more difficult for individuals experiencing homelessness to access the affordable housing, health services, and employment necessary to exit homelessness. To solve homelessness in our communities, we must invest in proven solutions, like affordable housing and supportive services, at the scale necessary. Decades of research have proven this — and it is my obligation as a homeless response provider to ensure that our community-wide interventions and tax-payer investments are data-driven and solution-oriented.
With oral arguments next week and an expected ruling by the end of June, we have time to support the outcomes we want to see for our state and local communities. Until then, you can also support bills currently in the Connecticut General Assembly that drive us closer to solving homelessness, including H.B. 5178: An Act Concerning Temporary Shelter Units for Persons Experiencing Homelessness Located on Real Property Owned by Religious Organizations and HB 5332: An Act Establishing The Interagency Council on Homelessness. Also, please continue to ask your elected officials on all levels to respond to the homeless and housing needs of our communities with robust and sustained funding.
Although disasters such as earthquakes are unpreventable, homelessness is anything but.
Jennifer Paradis is the Executive Director of Beth-El Center, Inc. in Milford.
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Measles Again! But Why?
Apr 24, 2024
A case of measles with spots appearing on the face.
Provided
The measles vaccine was licensed in 1963. It is a live attenuated virus vaccine that provides lifelong protection with few side effects. It does not cause autism. The virus is extraordinarily contagious. The measles vaccine is usually given with mumps and rubella vaccines, and often with the chicken pox vaccine. With earlier vaccines for whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria, and in the 1950’s, polio, life for children and parents became less fearful.
But let’s go back to 1963, when every child in the United States and across the world got measles. It caused them true misery. There were about 600,000 cases in children in 1963.
People my age (old) will sometimes say, “I had measles, and it was no big deal, it was uncomfortable, and I had a fever, and all those spots scared my Mom, but I got over it.” This sort of extrapolation is dangerous because humans are not genetically identical, and our immune systems vary—for 20% children and their parents, measles was a very big deal; they had complications, usually encephalitis, an infection of the brain, pneumonia, or ear infections.
In 1963, about 120,000 children were hospitalized in the U.S., and about 400 died. Other estimates are higher.
Measles is a respiratory disease; we inhale virus particles, and they infect cells of the trachea and upper lung. They go on to infect immune cells, which carry the virus to all parts of the body, including the skin where the spots appear. Usually, the spots start in the scalp and then appear on the face, the trunk, and extremities in that order. It has an incubation period of weeks and takes some time to get over. Measles is common in other parts of the world; it is still a killer in Africa and Asia.
The measles virus is made of RNA, which differs slightly from DNA. Many other nasty viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, and polio are made of RNA. Measles virus is about half the size of SARS-CoV-2, and only has six genes. The human genome is 3.2 billion nucleotides, a million times more that this virus. The virus is small, but potent. One of its powers is to defeat the defenses of an unvaccinated host.
We have two immune systems: innate and adaptive. The much older innate system is the first point of contact with a virus, and it has many tools to slow an infection, but only if it recognizes the virus RNA, its genetic material. The measles virus has incorporated into its tiny genome instructions to make an enzyme, or catalyst, called adenosine deaminase, which removes a nitrogen atom and a couple of hydrogens from adenosine components of the virus. That makes the virus invisible to the innate immune system but does not affect the ability of the virus to make thousands of copies of itself. The innate immune system has many tools to fight infections, but with measles the virus hides in plain sight.
Imagine an unvaccinated child with a case of measles. The child survives, but how long does impairment of the innate immune system last? Several years, it seems. The measles virus affects the antibodies that react against other diseases that the child has already survived.
Without that protection, old but latent infections—say hepatitis, can be reawakened and new virus infections become more dangerous. What measles research tells us goes beyond measles.
The measles virus evolved (perhaps a thousand years ago) from a cattle virus called Rinderpest, to which it remains similar. Rinderpest virus has been eliminated from cattle through vaccination. (The only other virus to be eliminated was smallpox). In 2000, the United States was sufficiently vaccinated that no cases of measles were recorded. The excellence of the vaccine and experience with Rinderpest led to the idea of eliminating the measles virus, but a decline in vaccine acceptance after a false autism scare, ended that hope. We now have periodic outbreaks of measles, usually from isolated communities. These cases are indicators that the public health system has deteriorated, often for ideological reasons, as is now the case in Florida. Think of measles infections as a harbinger, or to use a cliché, a canary in a coal mine.
The Florida health authorities are deluded. If for measles, what else? Perhaps mumps, rubella, and chickenpox.
Richard Kessin, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Email: Richard.Kessin@gmail.com.
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