THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 A1
A special good morning to subscriber Barbara Knight
Tuesday, September 13, 2022 • Redmond, Oregon • $1
FDA warns
Wild
Harvest
with letter
Redmond company says government
claims are misleading
BY NICK ROSENBERGER
Redmond Spokesman
The FDA on August 8 warned Redmond-based
herbal supplement company Oregon’s Wild Har-
vest about quality control failures that could allow
contaminants into their raw materials.
Oregon’s Wild Harvest, however, claims the
Food and Drug Administration’s letter is mislead-
ing and leaves out critical information — that all
contaminants were found and dealt with.
During an inspection Sept. 20-24, 2021, the
FDA found raw materials at the company’s facil-
ity that included rodent feces, glass, hard plastic
and a AA battery. Some of the allergens found in-
cluded wheat, tree nut shells, peanut shells, corn,
seeds and walnuts.
But Oregon’s Wild Harvest founder Pam Bu-
resh, CEO Mark Vieceli, quality control manager
Jacob Sausville and other quality control person-
nel said those contaminants were found and re-
moved and none were ever sold to customers.
Mark Blumenthal, the founder and executive
director of an independent nonprofit focused on
research and education surrounding herbal med-
icine called the American Botanical Council, said
it’s not uncommon to find and remove contami-
nants like this.
There can be all manner of contaminants from
agricultural products that come straight from
the field, he said. Some might include pesticides,
heavy metals and insects or larger objects like
nails, cigarette butts and plastic.
“It’s almost impossible to have agricultural
products that are 100 percent (pure),” Blumenthal
said.
Vieceli said removing contaminants is inherent
in agricultural production and that other compa-
nies should be scared with the misleading nature
of the FDA’s letter.
“It sounds like it got in the end product,” he
said. “It never sold.”
The FDA said they’d received a response from
the company and planned to re-inspect the facility
in the future, but would not comment on the case
as it remains under investigation.
See Wild Harvest / A6
SPORTS
High Note
RIdgeview volleyball ends nonleague play
with a win, A8
redmondspokesman.com
@RedmondSpox
Swap in
STYLE
The High Desert
Swap Meet and
Car Show came
back to the
Deschutes County
Fair & Expo Center.
A5
Nick Rosenberger
A classic Ford Thunderbird sits at the High Desert Swap Meet and Car Show at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center on Sept. 10 in Redmond.
Redmond to alert the public
before safe parking expansion
BY TIM TRAINOR
Redmond Spokesman
Redmond city council agreed
Sept. 6 that expansion of a church-
run safe parking program to any
city property would first have ex-
tensive outreach to the surrounding
neighborhood.
Such outreach was missing
from a scrapped plan to locate a
safe parking site for homeless res-
idents off Pershall Way in north
Redmond. Neighbors complained
about the plan at a heated council
meeting Aug. 23. Many comment-
ers said they were not informed
about the site and opposed it in
their neighborhood. City manager
Keith Witcosky said public works
crews would stop progress at the
site until council discussed it fur-
ther, then a week later announced
that the city had scrapped the Per-
shall location entirely.
On Sept. 6, city staff and council-
ors walked through what happened
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin file
FILE- The previously-proposed location for the safe parking program in north
Redmond. City officials said Aug. 29 that the Pershall Way location was no
longer under consideration.
at Pershall, and how it hoped to
avoid surprising neighbors in the
future. Council voted unanimously
to commit to “incorporate public
participation and awareness in the
event that any city-owned property
is considered for inclusion in the
safe parking program.”
Mayor George Endicott said the
resolution was created after council
and city staff “listened to what citi-
zens had to say.”
No one from the public com-
mented at the Sept. 6 meeting,
though council went back and forth
about how to move forward.
Witcosky noted that $16,000
of city funds were spent on the
scrapped project, mostly on labor
costs, which came out of $50,000
the council earmarked for home-
lessness programs. Councilor Ed
Fitch recommended reimbursing
$10,000 of those funds from the
council’s travel budget, though no
other councilor seconded the mo-
tion.
Councilor Krisanna Clark-En-
dicott said she would never sup-
port using city funds to help the
homeless. Clark-Endicott said any
program that targets a group of
people in Redmond amounts to
“waste, fraud, and abuse of city
funds.”
WEATHER FORECAST
See Parking / A6
INSIDE
Calendar .......................................................A2
Sports ...........................................................A8
Coffee Break ............................................. A10
Classifieds ................................................. A12
THIS WEEK’S FORECAST SPONSORED BY
Volume 113, No. 2
USPS 778-040
TUESDAY
Partly Cloudy
WEDNESDAY
Cloudy
THURSDAY
Partly Cloudy
FRIDAY
Partly Cloudy
SATURDAY
Partly Cloudy
SUNDAY
Partly Cloudy
MONDAY
Sunny
83/45
81/48
79/43
78/40
74/39
75/40
73/41
The Spokesman uses
recycled newsprint
U|xaIICGHy02326kzU