Since this year, my country’s Yunnan, Hunan and other places have successively reported 18 cases of aconite poisoning caused by medicated food and medicinal wine, with 81 cases and 5 deaths.
On March 16, the Department of Food Safety Standards and Monitoring and Evaluation of the National Health and Health Commission issued the “Tips on Preventing Food Poisoning by Accidental Harvesting and Eating”. Plants are growing vigorously, people are out on the green, and in some areas there have been incidents of household food poisoning caused by self-picked and homemade poisonous food and medicinal wine, and serious cases have died.
Aconitum (can be divided into Chuanwu, Caowu, etc.) is a poisonous Chinese medicinal material containing highly toxic aconitine, which must be processed before it can be used as medicine. There is a tradition of using Aconitum to prepare medicinal dietary products and brewing medicinal wine to treat rheumatism and pain-related diseases. Since it is difficult to destroy the toxicity of aconitine by ordinary stewing and processing methods, especially aconitine is easily soluble in alcohol, and once the medicated food and wine are handled improperly, it is very easy to cause poisoning.
The aconite used for making wine, according to Yangcheng Evening News
Ingestion of aconitum poisoning first occurs with numbness in the mouth, lips and tongue, tingling and burning sensation in the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat, and about 15-30 minutes after the toxic substances are absorbed. Various symptoms appear one after another, including nausea, vomiting, salivation, abdominal pain, diarrhea, numbness, tingling and ant-walking sensation, and gradually appear paralysis, facial and limb spasms, speech difficulties, vision and hearing loss, breathing difficulties, coma, etc. Death can occur due to arrhythmia and respiratory depression.
Areas with relevant dietary habits such as Yunnan, Hunan, Guizhou, and Sichuan should be highly vigilant, and professional guidance should be obtained when preparing medicated meals and medicinal wines. Do not drink medicinal wine of unknown origin. If symptoms of poisoning such as nausea, dizziness, chest tightness, numbness, and general malaise occur after eating medicated food or alcoholic beverages, you should immediately take measures such as inducing vomiting, and seek medical attention as soon as possible.
In addition, in recent years, there have been frequent occurrences of river and shellfish poisoning in parts of eastern my country. The food that causes river toxin poisoning in my country is mainly poisonous fish, which is called “river” (or “puffer fish”) by the people. River toxin is highly toxic, and the poisoning manifests as sensory paralysis, movement disorder, dizziness, headache, nausea and vomiting, decreased blood pressure, difficulty in breathing, etc. In severe cases, it can lead to death. The physical and chemical properties of tetroxin are relatively stable, and common cooking methods cannot completely remove it. To protect people’s health, my country prohibits the processing and operation of wild rivers. The public is specially reminded not to fish the edible river by themselves.
Shellfish toxins are produced by the accumulation of toxins in the shellfish due to the ingestion of the shellfish or the toxicity of the symbiotic algae. Its occurrence has obvious regional and seasonality, and red tide is most common when it occurs. The high-risk shellfish discovered in recent years are mainly mussels, followed by oysters, scallops, and clams. Common shellfish toxins include diarrhea, paralysis, neurosis and memory loss, etc., mainly diarrhea and paralytic shellfish toxins, which can lead to death in severe poisoning. Shellfish toxins are colorless and odorless, do not produce visible changes in the shellfish itself, and freezing and heating cannot completely inactivate the toxins. Specially remind the public to go to the formal food production and operation places as much as possible when consuming shellfish, and avoid salvaging edible seafood by themselves during the red tide warning period.
Once the public ingests the above foods by mistake, if they have suspicious symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, fever, headache, paralysis, etc., they should take measures to induce vomiting and seek medical treatment as soon as possible.
Editor: Sun Baoguang
