KILLER SHROOMS: Close-up of a flower-like mushroom, Trogia venenata, found in the highlands of Yunnan Province, China.COURTESY OF JIKAI LIU
Over the course of 30 summers, as seasonal rains drenched the verdant highlands of Yunnan province in southwest China, here and there a villager would suddenly drop dead. The killer, which became known as Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome, took roughly 400 lives over the course of 3 decades, but never revealed its identity. As the cases piled up, the Chinese government became increasingly anxious. Then, spurred into action by a TV documentary that aired in 2005, officials dispatched an elite investigative unit from the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention to scour the hills for clues.
“Otherwise healthy people would suddenly faint, go into a coma, and die,” says Robert Fontaine, an epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who ...
