Young Living

According to Mary Young, Donald Gary Young ('Gary') gained an interest in alternative medicine after suffering a back injury in the early 1970s.[11] Young had offered medical services in Spokane, Washington, including water births and cancer treatments, beginning in 1982. His wife had her baby through water birth in his clinic, and their baby died after drowning. After an undercover investigation in 1983, Young pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for practicing medicine without a license and received a suspended sentence.[12] [11] By 1986 Young was practicing as a naturopathic doctor in Tijuana, Mexico and offering cancer and lupus treatments, with a claimed 90% cure rate for the latter.[12][13] Young became interested in essential oils after meeting with a French lavender distiller at a conference in California some time before traveling to France to learn distillation. He purchased a 160-acre farm with his wife, Mary, in the early 1990s, located in St. Maries, Idaho.[11][14]

Young Living was founded in 1993 in Riverton, Utah, with Gary Young as CEO,[15] and was incorporated in 1994.[14] Young purchased a second farm in Mona, Utah, in 1996.[14] Young opened his first international farm in Ecuador in 2006.[14]

In 2010 they became the "first large commercial distillery" to distill essential oils from frankincense, and in 2014 their Highland Flats distillery "became the first automated, large-capacity, computerized steam distilling facility ... for essential oils".[14] In 1996, the company projected sales of between $8 and $10 million,[16] and reported annual sales of more than $1 billion from 2015 and 2017[17]

Starting in 2000, Gary ran the Young Life Research clinic in Springville, Utah. After settling a lawsuit in 2005, the clinic was closed, and he opened a clinic in Ecuador, practicing medicine and performing surgery there, over concerns from Young Living's COO, David Stirling.[11]

Young stepped down as CEO in 2015, and his third wife, Mary Young, assumed the role.[18] The company moved their corporate operations to Lehi, Utah, in 2014, receiving significant tax breaks in order to expand their operations,[15] and in 2017 started construction on their new corporate headquarters.[17] Gary died in 2018.[14]

Young Living employs a multi-level marketing model, recruiting "thousands of independent distributors who can sell directly to customers and earn commissions on sales to distributors recruited into a hierarchical network called 'downlines'."[2] Although distributors can potentially make a profit from direct sales, more money is made by commissions through sales made by people who the distributors recruit.[11] Distributors are categorized based on their sales: the lowest rank with the least sales are referred to as simply "Distributors", while at the top are the "Royal Crown Diamonds."[11] In 2017, the New Yorker reported that distributors are required by Young Living to make $100 of purchases per month to qualify for a commission. According to a public income statement, in 2016 approximately 94% of Young Living's active members made less than a dollar, while less than one tenth of one percent (about one thousand Royal Crown Diamond distributors) made over a million dollars.[24][4]

In September 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Young Living against illegally marketing its products as possible treatments or cures for Ebola virus[5][6][7] and other conditions, including "Parkinson’s disease, autism, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, insomnia, heart disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dementia, and multiple sclerosis", after they identified multiple instances of such claims being made by Young Living's distributors on social media and other websites.[8][10][25][9] The letter named specific essential oil products "promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs under section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)(B)], because they are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease."[9] The warning further stated that the marketing and distribution of these essential oil products as drugs by Young Living without FDA approval are violations of the Act.[9][26] Young Living subsequently agreed to address the violations cited by the FDA.[5][27][10]

In 2000, the Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division (UOSHD) investigated an August 17, 2000, explosion of a distiller, fatally wounding a worker at Young Living Farms in Mona, Utah. UOSHD fined Young Living Farms $10,280 for seven safety violations, stating that "no consideration was given in the design and construction of distillation vessels with respect to American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) pertaining to design and construction of pressure vessels", and that "none of the pressure vessels are equipped with any type of pressure relieving device".[28]

In September 2017 on a ruling against Young Living, the US Department of Justice announced a fine of $760,000 and guilty plea on federal misdemeanor charges for the illegal trafficking of rosewood oil and spikenard oil in violation of the Lacey Act of 1900 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The illegal activities were discovered by an outside investigator hired by Young Living, and the company subsequently voluntarily disclosed the concerns to the government.[29][30][31] In addition to the fines levied, the company was placed on probation for a period of five years.[30][29]

In April 2019, a nationwide class-action lawsuit was launched in California under the RICO Act against Young Living; company executives Mary Young, Jared Turner, and Benjamin Riley; and several other high-level members of the company. The complainants, seeking $5 million in damages, alleged that Young Living is an unlawful pyramid scheme created under the guise of selling essential oils for quasi-medicinal purposes.[32][33]

• Official website