About 50 people who attended a church conference at the Living Word Tabernacle Church in Bessemer City, North Carolina, developed symptoms of Salmonella food poisoning, according to the Gaston County Health Department. The dates of the event were October 1-5. To date, 7 of them have laboratory-confirmed cases of Salmonella. A significant number of lab results are pending, and more samples are being collected.
More than one vendor supplied food for the conference at Living Word Tabernacle Church, according to health investigators. This makes finding the source of the outbreak difficult, but not impossible.
Our Salmonella lawyers have helped many people sickened in events like this. “In some cases, there are traces of bacteria in the vendor’s food preparation areas,” said Fred Pritzker, a national food safety lawyer who represents food poisoning victims throughout the United States. “Generally, the local health department will swab these areas and test for bacteria. If Salmonella is found, further testing is done to see if it has the same DNA pattern as the bacteria that sickened the outbreak victims. This further testing is called Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis, or PFGE.”
People from several states attended the event at Living Word Tabernacle.