A Los Angeles City councilman is asking the police department to crack down on kids buying energy drinks, saying the buzz-worthy beverages contain far more caffeine than recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Councilman Bernard Parks, a former LAPD chief, is pushing for warning labels and restricting the amounts of energy drinks a customer can buy. He is also pushing to change drink placement on shelves to prevent children from buying them [PDF link to city motion].

In "many instances they are drinking seven to 10 times more caffeine than if they were drinking a regular soda," Parks said.

The push comes after a Consumer Reports study found some energy drinks to contain more caffeine than printed on the label, and as the FDA investigates claims made in 2012 that five deaths are possibly linked to the popular energy drink Monster.

"I think it is the FDA's job primarily to set standards but we as a city can do something as far as purchase location, labeling, and who gets access," Parks said.

Parks also recommended that LA County research the effects of energy drinks similar to studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Monster energy drinks contain 240 milligrams per 24-ounce can, about two and a half times the amount in an average cup of coffee, according to Consumer Reports.

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The South Los Angeles community in Parks’ district has been called a "food desert" due to lack of healthy options, and tops the charts in obesity rates at 30 percent of kids, according to the LA County Department of Health.

"What a waste of time," said South Los Angeles resident Wayne Clinton. "There's so many other things that need to be done."

With parts of South LA neglected, Clinton suggested the streets of South LA be "swept up" before the council focuses on banning caffeinated drinks.

"Look across the way -- you got alleys that need cleaned up," Clinton said.

The motion was submitted on March 6. Parks said he hopes it will move forward in committee this week.

NBC4's Michelle Valles contributed to this report.

Two residents of an elderly care home in California died and four other people were hospitalized after eating soup containing poisonous wild mushrooms picked by a caregiver, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Placer County sheriff's Lt. Mark Reed said the incident, reported Friday morning at the Gold Age Villa in Loomis, was believed to be an accident, the Bee reported. Reed said the dead were identified as Barbara Lopes, 86, and Teresa Olesniewicz, 73. The caregiver was among the four who were hospitalized, the Bee report said.

The Bee said the type of mushroom was not known.

However, Dr. Todd Mitchell, a Santa Cruz, Calif., doctor who is investigating an antidote to toxic mushroom poisoning, told NBC News that he is consulting on treatment of one of the patients sickened by amatoxin poison. A common cause of that poisoning is the Amanita phalloides -- death cap -- mushroom, which produces amatoxins that shut down liver function. 

The woman, who is in her 90s, is being treated with the so-called "Santa Cruz protocol" that includes use of the investigational drug Legalon, an intravenous form of silibinin, which is the extract of seeds from the milk-thistle plant. 

The treatment started Friday night, so it's still too early to tell how the woman, who was not identified, will fare, Mitchell said. However, dozens of patients treated with the milk-thistle drug and a protocol that emphasizes aggressive hydration typically have improved within 48 hours, he said. 

Nearly 6,000 people reported contact with suspicious mushrooms in 2010, and more than 1,300 people got sick, according to latest figures from the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Some 500 people suffered moderate to major injuries and at least one person died.

Related story:

• Tempting but toxic mushrooms? Drug promises new cure

The mad cow that was recently discovered through routine testing in California had been euthanized after it became lame and started lying down at a dairy, federal officials revealed Thursday.

How worried should we be about mad cow in US?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also said the cow was 10 years and seven months old in its update on the fourth case of mad cow disease ever discovered in the U.S.

California mad cow 'just a random mutation'

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes of California had said Wednesday that the sick cow was 5 years old. It came from a dairy farm in Tulare County, the nation's No. 1 dairy-producing county.

The USDA didn't elaborate on the cow's symptoms other than to say it was "humanely euthanized after it developed lameness and became recumbent."

Routine testing at a transfer facility showed the dead Holstein, which was destined for a rendering plant, had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The results were announced Tuesday.

Animals at high risk for the disease include those with symptoms of neurological disease, "downer" animals at slaughterhouses, animals that die at dairies or cattle ranches for unknown reasons, and cows more than 2 1/2 years old, because BSE occurs in older cows.

U.S. health officials say there is no risk to the food supply. The California cow was never destined for the meat market, and it developed "atypical" BSE from a random mutation, something that scientists know happens occasionally. Somehow, a protein the body normally harbors folds into an abnormal shape called a prion, setting off a chain reaction of misfolds that eventually kills brain cells.

In other countries, BSE's spread through herds was blamed on making cattle feed using recycled meat and bone meal from infected cows, so the U.S. has long banned feed containing such material.

The last two cases found in the U.S. were atypical as well.

For the first time in two decades, no one in California died from whooping cough last year, a public health victory that followed the deaths of 10 babies in 2010.

The state also cut the total number of whooping cough cases by two-thirds, from a high of nearly 9,000 in 2010 to less than 3,000 in 2011, officials announced Tuesday.

Dr. Gil Chavez, the California Department of Public Health epidemiologist and deputy director for infectious diseases, credited wider availability of vaccines, faster diagnosis, greater awareness and a new law that required pertussis booster shots for middle- and high-school kids.

“Looking at our data, we really identified that there were some gaps in the rates of vaccination of critical populations,” Chavez said.

The push depended on the cooperation of local health departments and health care providers working together to emphasize the need for vaccination against the infection.

Pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial illness spread by coughs and sneezes.

Efforts were targeted particularly toward families, caregivers and health care providers of babies younger than 6 months. Because they can’t be fully immunized until after that age, it’s important that everyone around the infants be protected against the disease, a process known as “cocooning," health experts say.

The number of whooping cough cases remained high in California, however, at nearly 3,000. The last time there were that many cases was in 2005. The last year in which no one died was 1991, when the state recorded just 249 cases of pertussis.

State officials are awaiting final figures that show how vaccination rates increased because of the efforts, Chavez said. The law requiring immunization of 7^th through 12-th graders will apply going forward to all students entering 7^th grade this year and in the future.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention applauded California's rapid response and vaccination efforts, said Alison Patti, a program manager. Pertussis is cyclical, so a drop in infections was expected as the disease made its way through the population. But efforts to accelerate and expand vaccination certainly helped.