- [Narrator] Hello everybody.
And welcome back to part
two of this deep dive
about the history behind
Young Living Essential Oils.
In part one, we covered the
history behind the founder
and how important it is to know exactly
who would be at the helm
leading this soon to be infamous MLM.
And now that we saw who exactly was behind
the makings of this company,
which is an absolute
train wreck of a past,
we now will be able to take a
better look into today's video
and focus on the company itself.
And it doesn't get much better,
I can assure you on that.
Now, in part two of this video series,
we are shifting away from the owner,
Donald Gary Young and into the company,
Young Living and what it produces.
And there are a couple
things I feel as though
I should clarify upfront
to you, the viewer.
This video is not an
attack on essential oils,
nor do I think essential oils are useless.
Essential oils are in my opinion,
best used as a room diffuser
to make your room smell nice.
There are some studies out
there and people that suggest
that aromatherapy can
assist in reducing issues
like headaches or help you
feel more awake or happier,
things like that.
And I'm not gonna take
that joy away from anyone
who wants to feel as though essential oils
can have that effect on them.
And that's not my message
behind this video either.
What I am against is a company
that manipulate sellers and buyers
and pushes false narratives
that essential oils can cure diseases,
or that it's a viable
replacement for medicines,
or even foods, which as a side note,
most essential oils are not
actually safe for consumption.
So if you're using oregano oil
in your pasta, please stop.
It's not that hard to swing
by the fruits and veggies
and grab some fresh herbs
or even the dried ones.
So a quick recap before we dive
into part two of this video.
In part one, I discussed
the interesting history
behind the founder of Young
Living, Donald Gary Young.
I address him by his full name
because he has tried multiple
times to act like a doctor
and was even charged
for practicing medicine
without a license.
If you look on the Young Living website,
you can see he's referred
to as D. Gary Young,
in what I think looks like
an attempt to look like
Dr. Gary Young,
and to make them appear more qualified
than what he actually is.
And speaking about those qualifications,
his degree is from a pay
for degree fake university
and having a doctorate
from a fake university,
shouldn't get you far,
but hey, this is also the guy
who couldn't get his own story straight
about when he was even
introduced to essential oils,
and who killed his own newborn daughter,
was charged with practicing
medicine without a license,
and claiming to cure cancer.
Oh, and he's also the guy
who opened a clinic in Mexico
that was exposed by Los Angeles
Times for faking statements
by showing that they could not
even properly identify blood on a slide.
This guy, Donald Gary Young.
If you haven't watched part one,
it's an absolute rollercoaster of a ride
and will shed a lot more light
onto how and why Young Living was started
and might even explain some
of the erratic behaviors
of the hun bots in the company
and the absolutely weird claims they make.
And know the things I just said
were not overexaggerations.
This guy actually has one
hell of a crazy backstory.
So let's go ahead and move forward
and take a look at the essential
oils MLM empire he created.
Let's get into it.
1993, Young Living
Essential Oils is founded.
Well, sometimes.
Some parts of the internet
say in 1992, 1993, or 1994.
I guess it depends on what
source you wanna go with.
So I'm just gonna go with 1993
since it's right in the middle.
In 1993, Donald Gary Young and his wife,
and at this point he had
been going through wives
like cheap bottles of wine.
So I really haven't bothered
to keep track of names,
but I can say, I'm pretty
sure this isn't the one
he almost killed though,
so that's both good and
bad, I suppose, yeah.
But hey, controversy in
the law are two things
Donald Gary Young couldn't seem to escape.
He was arrested in September, 1993
for threatening several
family members with an ax.
Two days before this alleged assault,
Donald Gary Young was actually
ousted from his position
as CEO of Young Living
for fraudulent misrepresentation
of himself as a doctor,
misuse of company funds to
support his personal endeavors,
erratic behavior during
meetings, among other problems.
According to police records
from Spokane, Washington,
two days later on September 29th, 1993,
he returned to the company
headquarters with an ax.
He attempted to force his
way into the locked building
by removing door hinge pins,
battering the doors with an ax,
and then threatening to
terrorize company employees
and even his wife.
And he had to be removed from
the property by local police.
This arrest led to court
actions against him
in Utah County, Utah.
Several members of his family
to include his own mother,
sister, and niece had all filed
sworn affidavits to the courts,
and the documents revealed
some of the hidden nature
of how Donald Gary Young
acts behind the scenes
when he thinks no one is watching, caring,
or has a strong enough
backbone to go against him.
These documents described an
extremely abusive home life
to include spanking his infant children,
and kicking them with
pointy-toed, cowboy boots.
His mother wrote that he was mentally
and emotionally abusive towards her.
And so even with all this early
on and even getting ousted
in essentially the first
year of Young Living Oils,
he still manages to come
back for some unknown reason
as the CEO and continued to
try and build this empire.
So eventually him and
his wife joined forces
to buy a 160 acre farm
to start growing herbs
for their new essential oils company.
In 1994, Young Living
built what they claim
to be the largest, most
technologically advanced
essential oil distillery in North America.
And from here, they began to
grow the brand of Young Living
and everything seemed
okay in the beginning.
And by okay, I mean quiet,
but just like Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.,
Pompeii had no idea that the
monster hiding in the mountain
was going to explode.
But you know, maybe I was
wrong about Donald Gary Young
and perhaps it was possible
to reform and change his ways.
Unfortunately it was his wife, Mary,
who would plague the company
with their new problem,
multi level marketing.
She introduced this business
model to the company
as a better way to market
and sell their oils.
She, herself was apparently
quite a successful MLM hun bot
with a company called Sunrider,
and took that knowledge
and incorporated it into
Young Living's personal blend.
And don't worry, Donald
will keep finding a way
to make negative headlines for the company
because he just can't seem
to control himself honestly.
I don't know what other
reasons there could be
for some of the shenanigans
they're going to get themselves into,
but you're gonna see this unfold.
But in the meantime, the two
began cultivating and growing
their farms, oils, and
distribution networks.
And for a few years,
everything was moving slowly,
but surely.
That is until the year 2000.
On August 17th, 2000, there
was an explosion of a distiller
that fatally wounded one of the employees
on Young Living's farms in Mona Utah.
That man, Juan Gomez,
was the father of four,
and his life was taken from him.
And a father was taken from his children
because of shoddy craftsmanship
on behalf of Donald Gary Young.
On December 7th, 2000, Young Living Farms
was cited with seven violations
from the Utah Occupational
Safety and Health Division
as a direct result of this
explosion and were fined.
Here are the seven
violations that were assessed
to Young Living.
Management did not take
appropriate actions
to correct unsafe conditions and practices
pertaining to operation
of distillation vessels.
No consideration was given in
the design and construction
of distillation vessels with respect
to American Society of
Mechanical Engineers requirements
pertaining to design and
construction of pressure vessels.
Respirators which are necessary
to protect the health of the
employee were not available
and there was no respiratory
protection program
and proper evaluations were not given
to ensure the health and
safety of the employees
working in those conditions.
No formal written permit space
was implemented for employees
who routinely entered
into the permit required confined spaces,
specifically the distillation vessels.
Employer did not establish a program
consisting of energy control procedures,
employee training, and
periodic inspections
to ensure that before any
employee performs any servicing
or maintenance on a machine or equipment.
Pulley belts were left unguarded
and left employees exposed to nip points.
Oxygen cutting using either a
chemical flux or iron powder
or gas shielded arc
cutting of stainless steel
shall be done using
mechanical ventilation,
adequate enough to remove
the fumes generated.
What really upsets me about this
is that on their website
to this current day,
they seem so proud of how they claim
to have built the most
technologically advanced
essential oil distillery.
And yet when you look at the
violations I just listed,
it really shows that they
were sloppy and cheap
with their design
and had a lack of care for their employees
and their safety,
and that employee's death was unnecessary,
and quite frankly, it looked
like they did their best
to sweep it under the rug.
Also in October, 2000, Donald Gary Young,
opened the very ambitious
Young Life Research Clinic
Institute of Natural Medicine
in Springville, Utah,
because you know, the first
attempt to have a medical clinic
with an unlicensed
practitioner worked so well.
It's just so strange
how he just can't seem
to get away from the
idea of being a doctor
and yet had literal decades to study
and get a legitimate doctorate,
but he chose to try and
take the easy way out
and essentially trick people into thinking
he's a medical professional
when he is not.
He bought his fake degree in 1985.
And so in the year 2000,
he would have had at least
15 years to get a degree
from that point, but he
still chose not to do that.
However, it does appear
that in those 15 years
he had gained some kind of knowledge,
or maybe it was just a
fear of being charged
for practicing without a license again.
I say this because when
he opened the doors
to the Young Life Research Clinic
Institute of Natural Medicine,
he actually hired a licensed
doctor this time around.
However, he hired someone
named Sherman Johnson, MD.
Now I've said it a couple times already,
but who could, in good faith,
actually work for this kind of individual?
Well, apparently this doctor could,
and well, after digging
into some of his background,
it became perfectly clear why.
Back in this man's past, it appears
he actually has a manslaughter
charge against him.
And what happened you might ask?
Well, it appears as though
Sherman's manslaughter charges
in connection to the
death of his girlfriend.
He incorrectly injected
his longtime girlfriend
and purposefully overdosed
her with narcotics.
He then falsified her death
certificate to hide his crime.
And for a short while he got away with it,
that is until a nurse came forward
and believed there was
something weird or suspicious
about the nature of the girlfriend's death
and brought forth corroborating
evidence of wrongdoing
and her body was actually exhumed.
Once tests were redone on her body,
he was caught and only managed
to avoid a homicide trial
by pleading guilty to
manslaughter instead.
And this is who Donald Gary
Young hired as his doctor
for his foundation.
And this clinic is now off and running,
and it was set up in a very similar way
to the clinics in Washington,
and the one he had in Mexico.
The clinic operated on a cash basis only,
and guests would pay $349 fee to register
and then were offered
long form treatment plans
to cure their various ailments.
These treatment plans
ranged from 2000 to $3,000,
and almost every single product sold
to treat the patients' various ailments
were blends of essential
oils and supplements
sold only by Young Living Essential Oils.
Patients had to additionally sign a form
stating that they were
not a member of the press
or any regulatory agency.
So I guess they really did
not like the little expose
the Los Angeles Times pulled
on them back in the 80s.
It should also be noted
that during this timeframe
is when Donald Gary Young
invented something called
Raindrop Therapy, and it's
every bit as kooky as it sounds.
And it's something they
actually still talk about
and promote on their website today.
- The Raindrop Technique is
a Young Living signature.
Our members around the
world study this technique
developed by Young Living founder,
D Gary Young for its
unique way of harmonizing,
rejuvenating, relaxing, and
aligning the body and mind.
Whether you're experienced in Raindrop,
or you're just beginning to explore,
join us for this simple step by step guide
and discover for yourself
this unique approach
to mind body wellness that
emphasizes essential oils
and accessing energy.
- [Narrator] It is a technique,
although I use that
word very, very loosely
of using seven single essential oils
and two blends formulated by
Young Living Essential Oils.
The concentrations of
all these doses combined
are too high to be considered safe
and are known to cause skin irritation,
sensitization, photo toxicity,
and essential oil toxicity.
Donald Gary Young pedaled
this unsafe treatment
as a very effective way to cure a variety
of medical conditions and
even said it was effective
in veterinarian applications,
especially for horses.
There are however, no actual proven tests
that can accurately conclude
that this actually helps anyone
or any animal.
Something oddly disturbing
about this Raindrop technique
is that even though it
has no proven benefits
and has some very serious
notable side effects,
it is something that is
actually still promoted
on Young Lving's website to this day.
So after all the fun Donald
Gary Young was having
with his latest clinic,
a few years had gone by.
By 2002 Young Living's website
began to list Donald
Gary Young with the title
N.D., which stands for
naturopathic doctor.
But as we have previously brought up,
his supposed degree is not
from an accredited college
and is not a valid license.
In a WordPress article
from Adulterated Oils,
they claim on April 2nd, 2002,
they called Young Living's headquarters
and asked if Donald
Gary Young was licensed
to practice naturopathy in Utah.
The representative on the
other line said he did,
but refused to give his license number,
something that would
be categorized publicly
with the Utah Division of
Professional Licensing.
This person claimed that
after they filed a complaint
with the community that Young
Living removed the N.D. title
from Donald's name.
As a matter of fact,
I went onto Young Living's website
using the Wayback machine and I found
a June 2005 2002 archive
that actually says in
the company information,
it says, where can I find information
about Dr. D. Gary Young?
Which literally shows that they
used to say he was a doctor,
even though we all know with
empirical proof, he was not.
And I'm sorry if you're
seeing this and it's purple
and I'm highlighting words and stuff
like this on the screen.
It's because it was literally
a dark purple background
with black text, and
it was so hard to read,
but it literally says,
where can I find information
about Dr. D. Gary Young?
And it says to find
information about Dr. Young,
click on the About Young Living button
on the left hand side of the home page,
or at the top of each subsequent page.
A new page will display, which
talks about Young Living.
Now for the next couple of years,
Donald Gary Young and his company
were able to remain relatively
under the radar until 2004.
In 2004, the Utah Attorney
General charged the clinic
and their employee with
practicing medicine,
without a license for
conducting diagnostic tests
and prescribing products
to patients at the clinic
between the years of 2000 to 2002.
Additionally, on March 20th of 2004
at the Total Health
Expo in Toronto, Canada,
Donald Gary Young spoke on the topic
of hormones and rejuvenation,
which yes, get ready to hear
some beyond outrageous claims
because this almost feels like a joke
with how obscene the situation
was when it happened.
Eva Briggs M.D., an
actual doctor was there
and wrote one hell of a tale
of her recounting of this talk
given by Mr. Very Real Doctor Man
Who Didn't Pay for a Fake Degree at All.
And here are some
charming snippets for you.
Young showed a series
of photos of old people
that he claimed to have
personally visited.
He inflated their ages
beyond the realm of
biological plausibility.
Young continued to perpetuate
the long since debunked myth
of Hunza longevity.
The claim that the Hunza people
commonly live to more than a
hundred years old is false.
Gary Young also showed a photo
of a man that he identified
as surreal and reported that
the man's age is 168 years old
at the time of the photo taken.
The man in the photograph
appeared to be Cherile Mislimov.
Mislimov was reported to be 168 years old
by National Geographic magazine.
Young stated that he
personally interviewed
and photograph Mislimov.
However, this is not possible.
Mislimov died in 1973.
Per Young's autobiography,
Young was hit on the head
by a falling tree in February, 1973
and spent months in the hospital,
then paralyzed for several years.
At the last portion of the talk,
Young went off on a bizarre tangent
claiming that his research
showed that young women, teens,
and 20 year olds employed in his company
had post-menopausal hormone levels
and the elderly women that he tested
all had pre-menopausal hormone levels.
However, Young asserts that his
pregnenolone-containing products
such as Prenolone cream can save women
from this pitiful fate.
So essentially what happened
here is that once again,
Donald Gary Young just can't seem
to keep his story straight.
It also appears that he believes
that people are gullible
and will just forget the
things he actually said.
For those who get wrapped up
in this cult-like environment,
you'll be fine with
believing everything he says,
but for the rest of us who see
through this like Eva Briggs,
it was absolutely shocking
to hear such clear deception.
In 2005, a lawsuit was finally settled
between Young Living's clinic
and a woman who claimed
to have almost died
due to improper care given at the facility
that led to kidney failure.
She claimed before going to the clinic,
her kidneys were perfectly
fine and functioning,
but as she became more
involved with the clinic
and following their health regiments,
in particular Vitamin C
infusions she was taking,
that those infusions had
caused her renal failure
and almost cost her her life.
After this lawsuit was settled,
Donald Gary Young blows
the clinic without warning
and quickly relocated to Ecuador,
where there were far less
restrictions and laws
regarding his medicinal practices
and how he was treating
new patients there.
Now between the years of 2005 to 2013,
Young Living actually managed to stay
relatively under the radar,
but bigger and worse things
were building for the company.
In this almost decade time
period is when Young Living
now begins to grow and finds its footing
as a successful MLM and starts
making millions of dollars
and gaining many, many distributors.
However, while they were under the radar,
they continued to develop and
strengthen their following
and their idea of this
unique process to the company
called Seed to Seal.
And I want to expand on this
claim for just a moment.
One of the things Young
Living prides itself on
is the idea of how it treats
the plants it uses and its oils
as a seed to seal standard.
In this process, they claim
that they source everything
for their oils from corporate owned farms,
and they control the entire
process for creating their oils
and oil blends in a way that
promotes them as superior.
But here's the realty on this wording.
It means absolutely nothing.
You see, there are no
standards for authenticating
essential oils and aromatherapy.
The registered wordmark has
not been provided to them
by the FDA as a claim,
and is meaningless in proving their oils
are actually of any
certifiable grade at all.
What this really means is that because
they are up to the
standard of seed to seal
and all of the identifying of
how pure their oils are done
is all in house by people who live
on the Young Living payroll.
And these people will make
the claim that their oils
are of the highest quality of the market.
I mean, if you worked for Young Living
and your job was to determine
how pure, or awesome,
or amazing their oils were,
wouldn't you just say that the oils
were the highest grade too?
I mean, alternatively, why wouldn't you?
When you get control of the
scale and you get to change it
to fit your standards,
then everything can be
considered the best quality.
But one of the most interesting things
about the wording of seed to seal
is that it does make an implication
from the seeds they grow
to the time they seal
their bottles of oils
is a complicated process
that they 100% control.
The reality of the situation
is that their production rates
exceed the farm acres they
actually have access to
and they tilt the message that
they control the best process
and use the best, freshest,
and purest ingredients.
When they bring prospective
buyers to their farms,
it's always to their lavender farms.
And why do you think that is?
Because it's one of the few ingredients
they actually produce on a
farm that they actually own.
Some very interesting
information I came across
while I was looking into this
was that they do own a select few farms,
but the vast majority of their products
just cannot be produced on
their corporate farm land
like they would like you to believe.
They claim to have over
600 life-changing products
and more than 270
essential oils and blends.
And so they had to employ the assistance
of what they call partner farms,
which in of itself, isn't terrible.
It's fine to partner with larger farms
to help produce crops you can't
or won't personally produce.
Businesses working with each
other is completely normal.
It just seems odd to
try and appear as though
they really don't do this when they do.
It is mentioned in Young Living's website,
but it's overshadowed by their
seed to seal shenanigans.
And while I was doing my research
and looking into what else could be shady
about their supposed seed to seal process,
I came across a website called
Sweet Willow Spirit Therapies
owned by Melissa Clymer,
an actual naturopath.
She had written an article
describing some more details
about why Young Living
remains very secretive
about their process and why
they don't want to disclose
the entirety of their essential
oils creation process.
And here's what she had to say.
The fact is, they don't grow all
or even most of their plants.
Many of the oils they offer
grow in random corners of the world
where they own no land or distilleries.
As one example, they harvest
balsam fir from northern Idaho,
but they did not plant the trees
or carefully select the
soil they were planted in.
These trees were there
long before Young Living
was even a company, much
less started harvesting them.
So this seed to seal guarantee
is a false hollow promise
that is impossible for them to fulfill.
Only the plants they grow themselves
could possibly hold up to the standard.
She furthered this example
by explaining the use of
sandalwood trees in the oils.
So I'm not really a botanist
or super into the history of trees,
but I found out that sandalwood trees
are actually the second
most expensive tree
in the world to harvest.
And then in the past, the
trees have been endangered
due to their very slow growing process.
And it takes about 15 years
for one tree to mature.
And because of this slow growth,
they're easily overharvested.
Sandalwood is only grown
in a few specific areas
of the world.
And while most are harvested legally,
there are a few places where the trees
will be harvested illegally
because of how valued they are.
And this overharvesting causes
those specific species of tree to die out.
Australia is the largest global
exporter of sandalwood trees
with 37,000 acres of land
dedicated to these trees.
And it is a careful and
dedicated process to preserve,
but also to harvest the trees.
Melissa states that everyone
who sells sandalwood essential oil,
obtains it from the few distillers
who actually have access to the plants,
but this directly stops Young Living
from being able to hold themselves
to their own standard of seed to seal
because they have no
control over the process
of how these trees are cared for,
or the quality of the oil
produced by the trees.
They're just purchasing
the distilled oils.
So what is my point
with this little tangent
about their seed to seal process?
My point is it's just a marketing tool
and a fantastic one at that,
as it has successfully
tricked many, many people
into getting involved with a company
with whom they believe they're paying more
for a more expensive, but more pure oil.
And maybe they are, but
there is no industry standard
to prove the validity one way or another.
The purity of essential oil
is literally a he said, she said claim.
And obviously if you
work for Young Living,
you'd claim yours are the best.
Speaking of oils, let's
also talk about mink oil.
You might remember this lady
from the intro in part one.
- Having a high quality ingredient
shouldn't mean the deaths
of a whole bunch of little creatures.
You can't say on one
hand that your company
is all about like natural God given oils
to help people's health,
and then turn around and
support the needless slaughter
and mistreatment of these
creatures that God made.
- [Narrator] And she mentioned
the senseless killing of animals.
And if that seems a little bit off putting
or even confusing, then you're
not alone 'cause I was too.
Why would animals even
be mentioned in a video
about essential oils?
Well, it turns out Young
Living used to use mink oil
in certain creams as a
rejuvenating ingredient.
Unfortunately for the minks,
you don't get mink oil
by giving them hugs or collecting
it from saliva or sweat,
they have to die.
And then the oil is extracted
from their skin post-mortem.
I found it weird that a company
that is all about this
whole seed to seal process
would approve of mink oil.
Their process claims that our oils
are sourced from our corporate
owned farms, partner farms,
and seed to seal certified suppliers.
This empowers us to source conscientiously
and with sensitivity to local
communities and ecosystems.
We vet and select our
like-minded suppliers
according to five principles,
established relationships,
seed to seal specifications,
binding agreements, stringent
testing, and ongoing audits.
Not too sure how you vet
the process of killing minks
for oil in their skin, but okay.
And apparently they thought they could,
or at least until PETA sunk
their claws into them for this.
I'm not a huge fan of PETA,
and I think as a company
overall, PETA's not too great,
but this would be one
of the few exceptions
where they may have done something right.
After PETA got ahold of them
and started causing a ruckus,
their products no longer
contained mink oils.
But it's so weird that
when you do a quick search,
you can still see the metadata
showing the oil description
for a product where
they prominently display
the use of mink oil in their products.
So that's a thing.
So now let's jump to
2013 where Young Living,
once again, embarrasses themselves.
In 2013, Young Living sued doTERRA,
another essential oils MLM.
This lead-up was pretty
much straightforward.
Four former executives
from Young Living left
and created their own
company called doTERRA.
Now that's a little shady on its own,
but that's not too important.
What does matter is that Young Living
decided to file a case against them
for violating confidentiality contracts
and poaching sellers.
The lawsuit was dismissed by a judge
because they stated Young
Living acted in bad faith.
So let's take a look at what happened.
The four executives left in 2007 and 2008,
but the lawsuit wouldn't be
filed until five years later.
The judge's ruling stated
that this was too many years
that had passed before
Young Living did anything,
which made it appear more
like this was a lawsuit
to try and shut down or significantly hurt
doTERRA's growth as a competitor.
Additionally, the suit filed
claimed there was $350 million in damages,
but Young Living had
issues proving to the court
how exactly they even
came up with that number.
Now I don't support doTERRA either
as they are another MLM company,
but something interesting
was brought forward
in the deposition phase of this case
that hurt Young Living substantially more
than if they had just bit
their lip and stayed quiet.
But you could probably tell already
Young Living has not had
the best track record
of staying in their own lane.
So here's how they messed up.
During the information period
gathering for the trial,
there was a dispute over
company secrets being stolen
from Young Living.
And so a comparison of the
oils from the two companies
was needed to be compared.
Dr. Robert Pappas, PhD, one of the field's
leading analytical chemists and the Dean
of the widely respected
Essential Oils University,
performed the task
between the two companies.
What he found was obviously
kept as quiet as possible,
but let me just blow the
lid open on this one.
His findings showed that certain samples
of Young Living's essential oils
contained synthetic compounds.
Here's why this is so damning.
Young Living claims there are
no synthetic oils, compounds,
or whatever you wanna
call it inside their oils.
They claim everything is carefully
sourced and 100% natural.
It's right here on their website.
But these comparison tests
showed empirical data
that Young Living was
lying to their consumers.
Dr. Pappas was brought in after
his many tests years prior
on Young Living's oils.
He was originally given a
sample of jasmine oil to test
and his findings were published
and stated that the oil
had a very high percentage
of a chemical known as DPG,
which was being sold as pure
jasmine oil, when it was not.
Young Living had originally contacted him
to retract his statement and his study,
but the university he
worked with on the study
kept the study up and claimed
that there was no need
for a retraction if Dr.
Pappas knew with certainty
that his conclusions were accurate.
As a funny side note from this lawsuit,
Dr. Pappas was actually
previously hired by Young Living
before this lawsuit, in
what he initially thought
was the company trying to
improve its oil standards.
He later discovered
the synthetic compounds
in the jasmine oil and also
that a particular birch oil
they used was not authentic.
And it was actually something
called methyl salicylate,
which is a generic wintergreen
fragrance used in beverages.
When they asked him to
retract his findings,
again, Pappas refused and
took his findings to BYU
and told Donald Gary Young the following.
"Bringing me here was a farce.
"You just basically wanted to use my name
"to promote your products.
"You didn't want accurate information.
"I gave them the report and
I said, I'm going home."
His findings were used in conjunction
with more research tests by
an independent lab in France.
The second chemical analysis
was conducted by this group,
otherwise known as the CNRS,
and they are a public research body
under the supervision of the
Ministry of National Education,
Higher Education, Research, and
Innovation in Paris, France.
Here's what they concluded.
For each sample, the
composition is not in agreement
with norm ISO/FDIS 856.
Abnormal presence of ethyl vanillin,
a molecule of synthetic origin.
The presence of this synthetic ingredient
was found inside peppermint
essential oil samples.
So not only was this lawsuit
dismissed against doTERRA,
but it also brought forward the data
to show that Young Living
was not transparent
with their oil process and not opposed
to putting synthetic
ingredients in their products
while claiming they were not.
I also feel like this is a good moment
to also discuss their prices
and why they claim
their oils cost so much,
especially in lieu of what
has just been presented.
So Young Living claims
their oils cost more.
And when I say more, I
mean, way more expensive.
Why?
They claim their ingredients are more pure
and to the highest standards,
which as we have already seen,
is something they can't
even hold themselves up to,
and they're the ones that made
their own scales of purity.
Their bottle of lavender
essential oil right now
cost $31 91 cents, while
a local competitor's
is only $6 and 99 cents.
And how about this one,
this one, or even this one?
The point I'm trying to make here
is they have inflated their prices
and created their own scale of purity
to use it to justify their high prices.
And there are many companies
out here creating and selling
their own essential oils at
a much more affordable price.
If you want some oils to use
in a diffuser, be my guest.
If a certain smell helps
you relax after a long day,
then smell that oil.
But don't support a company
that acts like a pyramid scheme
and hurts its sellers,
overcharges you, the buyer,
for oils that you could buy
from a more competitive
and reputable source,
but one that can't even hold
themselves to the standards
they set for their own oils.
Now, moving on from 2013.
In 2014, Young Living was
issued a warning statement
from the FDA.
In the letter dated September 22nd, 2014,
the letter said that Young
Living was making claims
that their products were
being promoted by sellers
as cures for conditions
that would classify the oils as drugs.
And then the FDA provided
quoted statements
that were being made by
Young Living's website,
its promotional materials,
or by its sellers.
Let's take a look.
Viruses including Ebola are no match
for Young Living Essential Oils.
Top on my list is Thieves.
Thieves is highly anti-microbial.
It could help against Ebola.
Regular use of rosemary essential oil
may help prevent diseases
associated with free radicals,
including cancer and heart disease.
Rosemary research in regards
to Alzheimer's disease
showed aromatherapy as
a potential treatment
for cognitive impairments
caused by dementia.
Rosemary has an anti-microbial
and antiseptic qualities
that may help eliminate
eczema and dermatitis.
Myrtle is a wonderful antiseptic.
It has been known to
protect against tetanus.
Peppermint oil has so many
more uses, asthma, autism,
brain injury, Crohn's disease,
multiple sclerosis, paralysis.
Ylang ylang is used medicinally
for the treatment of arterial
hypertension, diabetes,
insomnia, heart palpitations,
and tachycardia.
Research shows that
components of frankincense oil
cause boswellic acids to
have an antitumor effect
on the following types of cancer cells,
causing them to implode.
Prostate cancer cells, colon cancer cells,
cervical cancer cells,
bladder cancer cells,
leukemia cells, melanoma
and fibrosarcoma cells,
brain tumor cells.
The FDA also went on to say the following.
It is clear from the claims above
that your Young Living
essential oils products,
Thieves, Cinnamon Bark,
Oregano, ImmuPower, Rosemary,
Myrtle, Sandalwood,
Eucalyptus Blue, Peppermint,
Ylang Ylang, Frankincense,
and Orange are drugs
under Section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Act
because they are articles intended for use
in diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment,
or prevention of a disease.
And with this little letter,
it was made clear to Young Living
that they can't condone selling their oils
as cures to diseases,
which it was clear they were trying to do.
And honestly, with Donald
Gary Young as their leader,
it's not surprising the company
would lean towards the idea
of making it okay to pretend
you're a medical professional
when you aren't.
I mean, do we remember
the multiple fake clinics
he ran out that got shut down?
But hey, the FDA complaint
wasn't the only thing
Young Living was doing
that brought them under
the government's scope.
In late 2015, an article was published
that stated a toxic tort
slash environmental complaint
was filed for a complex
determination hearing
in Oakland, California.
Originally filed by the ERC,
or the Environmental Research
Center on June 5th, 2015,
they claim that Young Living
was in violation of
California's Proposition 65.
Prop 65 forces companies to
announce when their ingredients
contain higher than acceptable levels
of certain chemicals known to lead
to developmental toxicity.
They had independently
tested Young Living's oils
and found levels to be in
excess of acceptable lead levels
and we're demanding Young
Living label the products
in violation of Prop 65.
When Young Living ignored the ERC's
initial complaint with them,
they filed with the California's courts,
hence why this complaint
surfaced publicly.
Something to note here
was that I had issues
finding what happened in this court case.
However, Young Living's
website now has a section
about Prop 65 and it's labeling.
So I guess something did
happen there after all.
I'll leave that one up to you to decide.
Just 20 days after the
first letter from the ERC
was sent to Young Living,
Donald Gary Young very
suddenly stepped down
as the CEO of Young Living Essential Oils,
and his wife, Mary, became the new CEO.
Publicly, it was stated
that he stepped down
to pursue personal interests,
but based on everything I've
presented from part one,
and up to this point in part two,
it becomes exceptionally clear
that this was probably a decision
by the Board of Directors of Young Living
to try and preserve the brand.
And at this time, Donald did not go back
to the headquarters raging with an ax.
So that's definitely an improvement,
although what a shame that
the bar was set so low
by himself, for himself.
In 2016, some of Young
Living's own customer base
began to question the
quality of products received
from Young Living.
A blog page was posted where
independent lab studies
were published showing that once again,
Young Living was not using
pure unadulterated oils
as they claim they were.
This time, it was a curious seller
who had submitted samples
of Cinnamon Bark oil.
This was the labs results
about the Cinnamon Bark oil.
This sample has been adulterated
with synthetic cinnamaldehyde,
indicated by the presence
of those isomers.
Synthetic linalool may
have also been added.
When this person reported
their findings to their upline,
they were effectively ignored,
but some other consultants
got ahold of the information
and submitted additional bottles
of Cinnamon Bark and
Thieves oil for testing.
Once again, the lab had determined
that there were synthetic
chemicals in the oils,
therefore validating that Young Living
was not using unadulterated
oils as they claimed.
This information was
ignored by Young Living
and there was nothing this
person really did legally,
so the information was
just sitting online,
waiting for people to take a look
at the results for themselves.
In September, 2017, Young
Living was once again
in legal trouble with the government.
The United States Department of Justice
announced Young Living was
going to be fined $760,000
and a guilty plea on
federal misdemeanor charges
for illegally trafficking
rosewood oil and spikenard oils
that violated the Lacey Act of 1900
and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
The company was additionally placed
on a five year probationary
period for their missteps.
Now, hearing this, you might
wonder what this all means.
Sure, it sounds intense
and scary what they did,
so let's break it down.
The Lacey Act was established
to prohibit trade of
wildlife, fish, and plants
that had been illegally
possessed, transported, or sold.
The Act was originally put into place
to preserve game and wild
birds from going extinct
and to help preserve native ecosystems.
Now, the Act serves more
to prevent the importation
or spread of potentially
dangerous non-native species.
So what was essentially
happening was that Young Living
was in possession of
rosewood or spikenard oil
that was sourced illegally
one way or another.
An important thing to note
is that these findings
were actually brought to the government
by Young Living themselves.
And unlike their founder,
Donald Gary Young,
this would be one of the first times,
Young Living admitted
fault to something they did
and tried to make amends
for their actions.
They also stopped selling products
that contained those ingredients.
And once again, Young Living
seemed to slip off the radar
and just do their thing.
Now they were, and still are an MLM.
And there were many, many sellers
that were joining into Young
Living and losing money.
But for the time being,
all of these frustrations
were quiet and unassuming,
but there was trouble brewing
and it bubbled over again
in April of 2019.
On April 12, 2019, a class
action lawsuit was filed
against Young Living stemming from Texas,
accusing them of being a pyramid scheme.
This was actually a lawsuit
I covered on its own
in one of my Multi Level Monday videos.
In this lawsuit, claims were made
that Young Living operates
an illegal pyramid scheme
created under the guise
of selling essential oils
for quasi medicinal purposes.
In truth, Young Living is nothing more
than a cult-like organization,
falsely peddling the ever elusive promise
of financial success and
an alternative lifestyle.
They claim that success with Young Living
is just a pipe dream and
that the company focuses
on gaining more members
versus selling more product
and that Young Living's executive team
was involved in thousands of overt acts
of mail and wire fraud
and presented over 20
examples of these cases.
In the lawsuits, Prayer for Relief,
the suit claims it wants damages
for money lost by members,
a permanent injunctive
relief stopping Young Living
from participating in
being a pyramid scheme
and the cost of litigation.
This case is still ongoing.
And just a couple of months after that,
on December 6, 2019, yet another lawsuit
was filed against Young Living
for being a pyramid scheme,
but this time from the
state of California.
In this lawsuit filing,
there were claims again
of the company actively
participating in a pyramid scheme
while proposing dreams
of financial freedom
through peddling oils.
This lawsuit additionally
provided the following information
that was quite interesting to read.
Indeed in 2016, the medium
income of 94% of members
was $0 a month, and the average income
was a dismal $1 per month.
But these amounts do not include
the hundreds of dollars in cost
members incurred each year
just to remain eligible
to earn commissions.
When these costs were accounted for,
at least 97.5% of members lost money
rather than earned money working
for Young Living in 2016.
In fact, in 2016, the
average member lost $1,175
and members did not
fare any better in 2018.
Nearly 89% of members earned
an average of $4 for the year.
And again, this does not
include the hundreds of dollars
in costs incurred by members
to achieve that dismal $4 annual income.
Similar to 2016, at least 96.7% of members
lost money in 2018,
rather than earned money
working for Young Living.
The lawsuit also cited the
ruling against AdvoCare,
another MLM that was fined
for being a pyramid scheme
and was forced to leave
the MLM sales model
if they wanted to
continue to be in business
and drew similarities
between the two companies,
giving it more weight.
They additionally cited
the 70/30 Amway Rule,
which is a ruling that
independent sellers have to use
to provide proof that at least 70%
of all products they
purchase are for retail sales
and a maximum of 30% could
only be for personal use.
And this lawsuit claims
Young Living encourages
a gross and negligible
violation of that ruling.
In this lawsuit's Prayer for Relief,
they demanded that the company
is forced to stop being a pyramid scheme
to possibly include the option
of them not being able
to sell as an MLM anymore
and litigation fees.
And here we are finally,
at the end of 2019,
even though we just went on this wild ride
of Young Living's many, many mistakes,
we still have not even
scratched the surface
of their income disclosure statements
and how their sellers were losing
hundreds and thousands of dollars.
We didn't even get into the claims
of Young Living being a cult
and having a very scary and
intimidating indoctrination
into their so called family.
And to be clear about it,
that might be something
I touch on in the future.
I really wanted this video to focus
on the actions of the company
and their missteps there,
as I knew the script was already
going to be insanely long and complicated.
I did not want too many timelines crossing
so I could try and make this
as easy to follow as possible.
Something I said in part
one is how I believe
the leadership shapes
and influences a company.
And if we're going to look at the company,
we need to examine their leaders,
in this case, Donald Gary Young.
When we look at the lifespan
of its founder and the company,
I think it becomes super clear that Donald
had a profound impression on Young Living
and shaped the company
for better or for worse.
And this viewpoint will obviously change
depending on your stance on the company,
but looking at the overall picture,
it does seem as though
things have come full circle.
The company was founded by a man
built on the idea of
scheming his supporters
and spent most of his life
pretending to be something he was not.
And in recent years his
pride and joy, Young living,
is now beginning to crumble
for scheming and deceiving its supporters.
As much as I would love to go on,
this is the current
stopping point in the saga
that is Young Living Essential Oils
and it's a very eccentric
founder, Donald Gary Young.
This video was something that
took me a long time to create,
and I hope you have enjoyed watching it.
Please make sure to like this
video, if you haven't yet.
And if you want to see more
content like this in the future,
feel free to hit that
subscribe button too.
A big thank you to
everyone who supports me
through channel memberships,
which is YouTube's equivalent of Patreon,
but especially to Gwendolyn, my top tier.
Thank you so much for all the
support all of you give me
and allow me to keep
making videos like these.
If you'd like to support the channel,
please consider hitting the join button
below this video too.
And again guys, thank you so
much for watching this video
and taking a look at
this mess of a company
slowly becoming unwound
and presented to you today.
I love you all, and I'll
see you in the next video.
Bye guys.
(upbeat music)
