A release issued by the Person County Health Department said that David Bergmire-Sweat of the Epidemiology Section of the N.C. Division of Public Health on Tuesday “stated today that a specific pathogen cannot be determined by the State Laboratory of Public Health.”

But, the release said, “The illnesses appear to be linked to a foodborne intoxication. This means,” the release explained, “that a pathogen or bacteria in the food produces a toxin which in turn makes people sick after ingesting the toxin. It is the toxin which makes the person sick, not the bacteria.”

This can commonly occur, the health officials indicated, when foods are not held at proper temperatures.

“Cold foods should be held at 45 degrees or below and hot foods should be cooked to the proper temperature or reheated to 165 degrees and then maintained at 135 degrees or above,” officials emphasized.

The Force Protection function was held on Friday, Nov. 30, at the former Collins & Aikman Corp. Elm Plant, which FP has refitted for production of the company’s Cheetah bomb-resistant armored vehicle.

Approximately 400 people attended the dedication ceremony, and the health department reported that 76 of the 335 people contacted, after health officials began investigating on Dec. 4, reported suffering from symptoms such as abdominal cramping, diarrhea and chills.

The State Laboratory of Public Health ran tests on stool samples from luncheon attendees and catering company employees who got sick. It also tested food samples provided by The Catering Company of Chapel Hill, which supplied the food for the function.

Health officials said Tuesday, two weeks after their investigation began, “According to the data gathered from the interviews of attendees, a sick person was 3.3 times more likely to have eaten the pork loin served at the luncheon and 3.6 times more likely to have eaten the pasta vegetable salad.”

Food items offered at the luncheon included salmon, pork, potato salad, pasta salad, spinach salad, rolls, cookies and beverages. The Courier-Times learned from talking with some people who attended the event that the same food items were served from several stations, and that some attendees who got sick reported eating foods eaten by others who did not get sick. That could suggest that the suspect toxin might have been present in some foods taken from some stations but not the same foods served from other stations.

Among attendees who became ill after eating at the luncheon were Sheriff Dewey Jones and several of his deputies, then-Roxboro Mayor Steve Joyner and state Rep. Winkie Wilkins. All made full recoveries. Insofar as is known, no one was admitted to the hospital as a result of food-borne illness linked to the Nov. 30 luncheon.

In addition to the Person County Health Department and the state Division of Public Health, the Orange County Health Department assisted in the investigation.