JUST IN:

Danny Carson (@DannyMassachusetts) has been further vindicated. A new release of public FOIA data indicates that, over time, the total yeast and mold failure rate for The Heirloom Collective dropped from 14% (when testing with MCR labs) to 4% (when testing with Kaycha Labs) to an a near impossible 1% (with CDX labs).

Earlier, per a leaked letter sent to staff members of Massachusetts operator The Heirloom Collective, the company changed its tune, again, as to recent reporting by Danny (a consumer safety advocate) related to “off the shelf” testing of a Heirloom Collective product that, in turn, failed for total yeast and mold (at a level of 490,000 CFU/g).

However, if one looks at the results from their FOIA data that has been publicly released, this will confirm that Heirloom Collective change in testing lab was correlated with a significant reduction in microbial failures.

The METRC data released starts in mid-2021 with MCR testing data, but then The Heirloom Collective switched to Kaycha in early 2022  for their primary testing provider for flower, (at which point Heirloom saw a 10% reduction in microbial failures). In one case, Heirloom tested one sample with ATOZ and four with Safetiva, but then did some testing with CDX  (however CDX had slightly lower potency values) so that may be why they stayed with Kaycha, using PCR testing to pass their product.

It is hard to say if this is intentional lab shopping, but the FOIA data supports that hypothesis, and seems to indicate the inappropriate nature of testing with PCR (Kaycha and CDX are both reported to use a version of the PCR method for their testing).

Based on the results for recent mold testing, it appears that Kaycha was providing fraudulent or misleading data to Heirloom and, in turn, permitting their microbial contamination problems to grow out of control. This is interesting because, under 935 CMR, § 500.450 (2),  licensees providing information that is deceptive, misleading, false or fraudulent are subject to suspension or revocation of their license. These results, among others, have been provided to the CCC, according to my sources. However, the agency, of yet, has taken no action, Under 935 CMR, § 500.340 (1), the Commission may impose a quarantine to protect the health, safety or welfare of consumer, but this has not happened, even once, for a flower product in the Commonwealth.

A previous leaked letter --sent in recent days by The Heirloom Collective and which wantonly attacked Danny’s recent work to expose dangerous products (contaminated with yeast and mold beyond acceptable limits) via off-the-shelf consumer testing-- was further compounded when Danny revealed to me, in an interview last Thursday, that Danny was denied access to a Certificate of Analysis (for a product that Danny purchases) by that very The Heirloom Collective. Read more background here - https://www.instagram.com/p/DCe_fOkMHji/

However, Danny also told me, another retailer (who also sold products from The Heirloom Collective) was able to provide Danny with the COA.

In turn, Danny was then able to do confirmatory testing which showed that the sample --with a water level below 0.6, thus making any growth of mold impossible after the product was packaged-- failed with 490,000 CFU/g present (the state limit for total yeast and mold is 10,000 CFU/g). In turn, my conclusions are thus:

ProVerde does not provide compliance testing for Heirloom flower, and as such, could not have been aware of any microbial issues with Heirloom flower.

ProVerde did provide testing for recent samples ( submitted by Danny) under their pro-bono total yeast & mold testing program, which utilizes two different AOAC certified, culture-based methods for cross confirmation of any results reported therefrom.

It appears Kaycha was providing data to Heirloom Collective which was not accurate, potentially obscuring and permitting microbial issues at Heirloom to go without notice.

More as I know it.

This post originally appeared here - https://www.instagram.com/p/DClqoGQxgP8/