Health officials race to trace a supply of a spice product suspected of poisoning dozens of diners at a Toronto-area restaurant amid concerns it may be on shelves elsewhere in Canada. doing.
At least 12 people became seriously ill after dining at Delight Restaurant & BBQ in Markham, Ontario over the weekend, with four requiring intensive care unit treatment. Five people were hospitalized on Tuesday, and York Area Public Health said they are all expected to make a full recovery.
Authorities believe all 12 people consumed toxins from the aconitum plant, popular in traditional Chinese medicine, in the restaurant’s chicken dishes.
Aconite toxin affects the nerves that control muscles in the body, causing numbness in the face and extremities, severe gastrointestinal problems, and even irregular heart rhythms. Ingested in large amounts, monkshood can cause fatal heart arrhythmias.
York Area Health and Medical Officer Dr. Barry Pikes told CBC News on Tuesday that officials believed the restaurant had used “accidentally contaminated” spice products, and state and federal agencies said it was the case elsewhere in Canada. He said he was trying to track whether it was distributed at any of the locations.
“This seems like a pretty small batch situation or a distributor or a pretty niche product,” he said.
“The main focus of our work is figuring out where it could have gone and making sure that all of that product is available off the shelf.”
Pacques said the York Area Public Health Service is awaiting test results from federal laboratories to confirm the cause of the poisoning. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency only said it was “providing support as the source is being investigated.”
Delight Restaurant & BBQ is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and did not respond to requests for comment.
Restaurants are allowed to reopen on Wednesday, Paquez said.
“We don’t believe the restaurant poses a safety risk. We went back and re-inspected it and it will be open,” he said.
“For a small business like this, there is no reason to keep it closed. We are very confident in what the offending item really was.”
“Queen of Poison”
There are about 240 species of aconitum in Asia, North America and Europe, also known as monkshoods and wolves. Popular with gardeners for their bright flowers, usually purple or blue, most species are highly toxic and should be handled with care.
“Monkhoods are in gardens all over the world because they’re beautiful plants. They’re late bloomers. Bumblebees love them,” said Roger Getig, director of horticulture at the Toronto Botanic Gardens.
He recommended wearing rubber or leather gloves when working with plants to avoid contact with toxins.
The plant’s poison has been used in hunting and combat for centuries, applied to arrows and spears used to kill animals and enemies, and is named in pop culture – from a poem by John Keats ode to melancholy For Harry Potter’s Wolfsbane Potion.
Fictional killers aren’t the only ones drawn to poisonous plants: in 2010, a British woman was convicted of killing her ex-girlfriend by putting aconite in leftover curry.
“The lethal dose for humans is only 2 milligrams, about the size of a sesame seed,” said Dr. Platek Lara, assistant professor and associate director of applied clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto. .
“Dose of each [Toronto] It must have been much lower than that if the patient was already on the road to recovery. ”
Aconite poisoning in Canada is ‘rare’
In 2004, 25-year-old actor Andre Noble died in his native state of Newfoundland after allegedly ingesting monk sap.
And in early February of this year, two people in British Columbia had to be hospitalized after eating ginger powder containing aconite.
But such cases are rare, says Dr. Margaret Thompson, medical director of the Ontario Poison Center. She estimates that the center records her one case every five years.
Past cases have involved people taking high concentrations of products intended for medicinal purposes, and others mistaking the plant for another herb such as parsley.
“It actually happens when it’s not blooming. [think] It’s just a nice green plant. People will actually think, ‘Oh, I can put this in a salad,'” Thompson said.
There is no antidote for aconite beetle poisoning, so treatment focuses on supportive care, including activated charcoal, if patients seek treatment early enough, and anti-nausea medications and fluids if they are suffering from vomiting or diarrhea. Patients may need a ventilator to help them breathe, and may need defibrillation to restore a normal heartbeat, Thompson said.
Aconitum as a remedy, not a recipe
Aconitum root is regularly used in Eastern herbal medicine as a local or internal anesthetic for rheumatic conditions, including traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, but it is also used in complex remedies to remove toxins from the plant. It is used only after processing.
Tim Sibaldo, a teacher at the Ontario College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, says the TCM protocol calls for aconitum roots to be boiled for one to two hours to reduce toxicity. A traditional Chinese medicine practitioner then takes a chopstick, dips it in the concoction, and dots the liquid on the tongue to check for toxicity.
“If you have a numbness or tingling sensation, you have not yet detoxified the herb and cannot use it yet.
“It’s not the dosage that’s the issue, it’s that almost any dosage can be lethal,” he said.
At least 12 people dining at a restaurant near Toronto may have been poisoned by a spice contaminated with a potentially deadly pathogen, public health officials say. there is.
Sibbald and Chris Pickrell, naturopaths, herbalists and TCM practitioners in Toronto, said it would be unusual for aconitum to be used in Chinese recipes.
“There’s no traditional recipe that knows where it appears…it has many great uses in herbal medicine, but it’s never used in cooking,” Pickrell said.
Sliced aconitum and dried ginger may look similar, but their Chinese names are quite different, so the labels are unlikely to be misinterpreted for each other, he said.
York Area Public Health said anyone who ate restaurant leftovers over the weekend should throw it out.
