HARTFORD, Conn., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hospital officials in Connecticut said emergency use of a drug still in the clinical trial stage saved the life of a woman poisoned by backyard mushrooms.
After Shah Noor, 40, picked mushrooms from her Newington, Conn., back yard Oct. 11 and served them to her family with onions, garlic and chili peppers, her husband Musarat Ullah, 59, and daughter Aiman Bibi, 21, went to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center with severe stomach pains, the Hartford, Conn., Courant reported Wednesday.
Dr. Danyal Ibrahim, hospital director of toxicology, urged Ullah to phone home to ensure his wife and other daughter, Wafa Guloona, 24, were safe.
"When I called I heard this hue and cry," Ullah said.
His wife was vomiting and Guloona was sick to her stomach, vomiting twice as she drove with her mother to the hospital, the newspaper said.
Ibrahim said he learned of the ingestion of the mushrooms, the species Amanita bisporigera, common in the northeast and potentially deadly when eaten, and treated the four in the hospital emergency room with intravenous fluids, a toxin-absorbing charcoal solution and liver-restoring drug N-Acetylcysteine.
All but Guloona responded to treatment and, fearing the breakdown of her liver, Ibrahim recommended silibinin, a drug undergoing clinical trials but not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
An internal review board approved the treatment after asking if it was a matter of life and death. Ibrahim ordered the drug, which arrived Sunday, the newspaper said.
Ibrahim said Guloona will be well enough to go home by the end of the week.
