*In the interest of full disclosure, I have made purchases from Taunton Bay Soap Company many times in the past.
On September 26, 2018, lab results from the products of a popular kratom vendor were posted in a group on Facebook. The report showed mold and yeast counts that she found concerning.
The poster claimed that she had purchased several products
from Taunton Bay Soap Company on August 22, 2018: Hirsuta, Javanica, and
kratom. Upon opening the Hirsuta and Javanica, she alleged they had a funny
smell, which then prompted to her leave the packages of kratom unopened to be
sent out for testing. There were five kratom strains tested, and pictures of
all five results were included in the post. Each strain showed high levels of
mold, and the lab reports stated the content was “Too Numerous To Count,” or
TNTC. Click here to view pictures of the labs and the corresponding product labels. The news quickly spread outside of the group, leaving many consumers
confused and concerned.
To corroborate her story, the poster provided pictures of
each product label with the associating lot numbers, and also provided a video
of herself placing the unopened kratom into a box, and sealing it with packing
tape to be mailed out. In any case, all was not as it seemed.
The client name on the lab results were covered, which caused
suspicions to arise. After further research, the poster appeared to be working
for a botanical competitor, Urban Ice Organics. As further explanation, the
poster stated she frequently buys from other kratom vendors for her own
personal use, and that any professional relationship she had with the competing
vendor played no part in her decision to have the kratom tested. She also
claimed that she sent the products off for testing because she saw that Taunton
Bay Soap Company and another kratom vendor, Gaia Ethnobotanical, LLC, were
teaming up to help a plant-based rehab facility. (Gaia’s owner, Daniel Bower,
had been caught forging lab results for his own products and, several months
ago, some of his kratom was recalled due to alleged salmonella contamination.)
Although she was concerned that perhaps Taunton Bay and Gaia were selling
products from the same tainted batches, it was later determined that the
companies weren’t actually teaming up, but that they simply both had made large
donations to the rehab facility.
Several weeks prior to the Facebook post, the lab results
were sent directly to Taunton Bay by the owner of Urban Ice Organics, Kelly
Dunn, as Taunton Bay has confirmed. He requested to see their lab results of the same products to check for
inconsistencies. Taunton Bay was not able to produce the results, so they
allege to have sent new samples of the same product batches to be tested again.
Taunton Bay Soap Company owners, Veronicka Bamford-Connors
and Norman Bamford, responded to the claims in a live video on their Facebookpage on September 28, 2018. They reiterated that they test their products
regularly, they follow cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practice) guidelines,
and that they had never received results like this. As an explanation as to why
they were unable to produce results from their own lab, the labs Dunn requested
to see, that should have been done prior to the products being released for
sale, they explained: a former employee of the company was tasked with sending
the samples out for testing. That employee then took a vacation without
informing anyone in management, and it was later discovered the samples had
never been sent. That employee no longer works for them, and they sent out new
samples of the product in question on September 11, 2018 after hearing from
Dunn. Bamford-Connors and Bamford stated they test every product that comes in
before it is listed for sale, this was a one-time clerical error, and they are
happy to show any lab results to anyone who asks for them. They also firmly
stated they would not send the results to Dunn at all, citing the fact that
vendors do not have to prove their lab results to other vendors. I reached out
to request copies of the last labs they received, and they did not respond. In
fact, as of this writing on October 11, 2018, no new (or old) lab results have been released.
In that same live video, Bamford-Connors and Bamford also
questioned the validity of the lab results. Bamford stated the results were
illogical because there is no number a computer can’t read; therefore “TNTC”
would be impossible. Other contaminants were listed as “<10,” which
indicated to them that the scale used by the lab was skewed: their results
showed the contaminants were too high simply because the lab set the bar too
low. That video has since been deleted: “I took it down the bully’s said we
were being bullies and it was making things worse,” Bamford explained on
Facebook.
Anresco Laboraties is an ISO/IEC accredited company, and is recognized
by the FDA. They are recognized by other botanical vendors, as well. Anresco
provided the tests of the kratom strains in questions, but kratom is just one
of the products they test. When the original Facebook post was made with the
lab results attached, the poster invited everyone to check with the lab to
confirm the results were real. Despite the public invitation, due to confidentiality agreements, that
was not able to be done. I reached out to Kelly Dunn, and he allowed me to gain
access through the lab to ask questions. I spoke with several Anresco employees
via email and over the phone.
Currently, the kratom industry is highly unregulated. There are no set standards, legally, vendors need to follow in regards to
obtaining their products, how the products are stored, what the products are
tested for, etc. This has led to a lot of what consumers are calling “kitchen
vendors,” i.e., vendors who work out of their homes, or vendors who otherwise
have no health and safety standards they uphold to send their products to
retail. As the DEA continues its fight against kratom, the lack of health
standards adds to their argument that it is not a safe product for consumption. Be that as it may, since kratom can be safely consumed, it’s reasonable to lean towards a
compromise: regulation. Regulation is in the best interest of the consumer to
insure the products they’re getting aren’t tainted or otherwise harmful. This
is where cGMP comes into play.
According to the FDA, the DS cGMP (Dietary SupplementsCurrent Good Manufacturing Practice) rule requires vendors to take samples from
their products to be tested before they go live to sell, and then the product
is to remain under quarantine until the test results come back and show the
product is safe for consumption. Taunton Bay Soap Company claims to follow cGMP
guidelines, however, the products in question were sent to retail even though
no test results had come back, by their own admission.
In order to determine what is safe for consumers, Anresco
Labs follow the guidelines laid out by the American Herbal Products Association,
or AHPA. “AHPA’s mission is to promote the responsible commerce of herbal
products to ensure that consumers continue to enjoy informed access to a wide
variety of herbal goods.” AHPA standards are very close to being identical to
the standards given by WHO, the World Health Organization, which is widely
recognized for food safety standards. Click here for a PDF comparison of microbiallimits by company. For Anresco specifically, yeast and mold counts should be 10
to the 5th (100,000)
colony-forming units (cfu)/grams or below. The results state TNTC because the
number of mold colonies is higher than 10 to the 5th power. On one
of the lab results, yeast is also listed as “TNTC,” which means colonies of
yeast were not able to be determined, and the lab informed me that happened because
the mold count was so elevated. This doesn’t mean the product is unsafe or
harmful to consume; it’s a spectrum that lends itself to the quality of the
product, not safe vs unsafe. The actual number of colonies can be determined,
but that would take additional testing. With that being said, what we do know
is the numbers in question are above 10 to the 5th power cfu/grams (more than 100,000.)
Click here to view a summary of this information on Anresco's website.
**Edited to add: Lab employees explained that the mold is not due storage or age of the product: it accumulated prior to the leaves being dried and crushed.
Click here to view a summary of this information on Anresco's website.
**Edited to add: Lab employees explained that the mold is not due storage or age of the product: it accumulated prior to the leaves being dried and crushed.
I verified with the lab that the numbers indicating the
standards the lab goes by cannot be arbitrarily changed on client request. The
lab is a nonbiased party.
It’s important to remember that there is mold in many, many
food and dietary supplement products, and it’s not something that is inherently
dangerous to consume. These results don’t show that the products are unsafe,
only that contaminants have been detected, and the number of contaminants is
higher than what would be nationally recognized as standard. In my humble opinion,
kratom will eventually be looked at as a dietary supplement, or at least in the
food category because it is consumed, and regulations will be put in place, as it is with other supplements. As
consumers, we are given the right to know what’s in the products we are putting
into our bodies, and this is just one of those cases.
This may be a two part series as there’s more to the story
than what I've included here, so stay tuned. There is definitely more tea (or more to the story) as to the real
reason the labs were done to begin with. The labs are
real, that is a proven fact. But there’s two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth; if I hear
from any parties involved and have updates, I will keep you updated. I look forward to continuing conversations and starting new ones.
To see if kratom is legal in your state, click here.
For my personal kratom story, click here.
For more information on kratom in general, click here and check out the American Kratom Association's website.
To see if kratom is legal in your state, click here.
For my personal kratom story, click here.
