Do you have evidence to back up this claim? I'm aware CA puts many warning stickers on various products... but isn't it possible that profit-seeking corporations are, in fact, using cancer-causing materials simply because they're cheaper?
The point isn't that the amount of cancer caused is literally zero. Just by chance, everything will have some (generally infinitesimal) effect on cancer, and often it will be positive. The question is whether "causes cancer" is being applied to products that cause amounts of cancer that are so small that it's not worth warning people about. That consumer products and businesses are covered in these warning and few people take them seriously is prima facie evidence that this is the case, but you'd have to dig into the numbers to be sure.
For instance, Wikipedia:
> The requirements apply to amounts above what would present a 1-in-100,000 risk of cancer assuming lifetime exposure (for carcinogens)
Using the standard ~$5M statistical value of life, this mean that you need to label a product if it is estimated to impose the equivalent of $50 in costs if someone is regularly exposed to the chemical over an entire lifetime. I'm not sure what frequency of exposure is being assumed here, but naively that means that if I use the product once a week, it requires notification of about 2 cents worth of harm per usage.
You're not going to get more customers by labeling your product with "99% less cancerous than what the standard requires" next to the warning that it causes cancer.
They're not labeling things that are particularly known to be harmful. CA Prop 65 warnings are on all rice, coffee, and multi-tenant garages. When you begin labeling things that common and benign as "cancer-causing" people learn to tune it out. Pretty sure rice, coffee, and/or multi-tenant garages are found pretty much everywhere.
This article is not very convincing. I mean sure, the thing about coffee was over the top, but they also stopped requiring that one.
Meanwhile the other examples it uses are that you have to be warned when you're being exposed to things like diesel exhaust. Which, um, actually does cause cancer.
People don't seem to change their behaviour due to those warnings. Nobody's going into a coffee shop, seeing that warning sticker and thinking 'ah whoops better get out of here' are they? The warning 'cancer-causing' has no effect.
This works, if you have 20 coffee shops, and one of them has "there's asbestos in this building" warning.
If you have warnings literally everywhere, for minor things, that noone really cares about, because the risks are miniscule, people will start ignoring even the dangerous but identical-looking signs. "this item causes cancer" ... are we talking about asbestos, or are we talking about a roasted potato? If the labels are the same, people stop noticing them.
I almost bought olive oil, then noticed the California warning sticker that it contained lead, and didn’t buy it - I don’t see that on all olive oil. So it does make a difference sometimes
My social circle is in CA. None of us pay any attention whatsoever to prop65 labels. They're about as useful as any other type of product or business labeling: there's so much of it that it's just visual noise that's long-ago been brainfiltered out of existence.
Devil's advocate, it has an effect on some minority of people. Then the company loses sales and has the incentive to stop using the carcinogen if possible.
Your lifetime risk of getting cancer from that thing might have been one in a thousand, so you don't really care, but the company has ten million customers and getting them to change prevents 10,000 cancers.
This is a pretty good alternative to banning the thing. Because if there is a reasonable way to stop using the carcinogen, you don't want to be the company that has the cancer warning when your competitors don't. But if there isn't, maybe the risk is low enough that people make an informed choice to take the risk for the benefit of the thing with no better alternative, and that's fine too.
I absolutely pay attention to Prop 65 when I buy products and will find alternatives. I also try to find out _why_ there's a prop 65 warning and then decide how much I care (e.g. if an SSD has it, I don't care because I know I'm handling it so little and it shouldn't be offgasing anything; where as with food or things I'm always touching, then I care very much).
I think the reality is we have so many terrible chemicals all around us that it feels like an over reaction, when it's actually the exact opposite -- manufacturers have made many a deal with the devil.
In many cases it's natural risk, not the products at all.
Everything has some amount of lead back from the days when it was used recklessly. Everything has some amount of mercury that's still going up smokestacks. (Now we catch most of it--not all of it!) Plants pick up some arsenic from the soil--for medical reasons I eat a lot of rice and it's enough of an issue I make sure to buy rice grown in low-arsenic areas.
jessriedel|4 years ago
For instance, Wikipedia:
> The requirements apply to amounts above what would present a 1-in-100,000 risk of cancer assuming lifetime exposure (for carcinogens)
Using the standard ~$5M statistical value of life, this mean that you need to label a product if it is estimated to impose the equivalent of $50 in costs if someone is regularly exposed to the chemical over an entire lifetime. I'm not sure what frequency of exposure is being assumed here, but naively that means that if I use the product once a week, it requires notification of about 2 cents worth of harm per usage.
imtringued|4 years ago
LorenPechtel|4 years ago
maxk42|4 years ago
rezendi|4 years ago
AnthonyMouse|4 years ago
Meanwhile the other examples it uses are that you have to be warned when you're being exposed to things like diesel exhaust. Which, um, actually does cause cancer.
chrisseaton|4 years ago
ajsnigrutin|4 years ago
If you have warnings literally everywhere, for minor things, that noone really cares about, because the risks are miniscule, people will start ignoring even the dangerous but identical-looking signs. "this item causes cancer" ... are we talking about asbestos, or are we talking about a roasted potato? If the labels are the same, people stop noticing them.
californical|4 years ago
zbrozek|4 years ago
AnthonyMouse|4 years ago
Devil's advocate, it has an effect on some minority of people. Then the company loses sales and has the incentive to stop using the carcinogen if possible.
Your lifetime risk of getting cancer from that thing might have been one in a thousand, so you don't really care, but the company has ten million customers and getting them to change prevents 10,000 cancers.
This is a pretty good alternative to banning the thing. Because if there is a reasonable way to stop using the carcinogen, you don't want to be the company that has the cancer warning when your competitors don't. But if there isn't, maybe the risk is low enough that people make an informed choice to take the risk for the benefit of the thing with no better alternative, and that's fine too.
azinman2|4 years ago
csee|4 years ago
I have changed my behavior in response to health info on labels, so this is anecdotal evidence against your assertion.
PR campaigns have been known to work, e.g. alcohol in Russia in the 90s.
djbusby|4 years ago
Tagbert|4 years ago
When the risk is infinitesimal and the warning placed on so many items, what is the value of that warning?
azinman2|4 years ago
I think the reality is we have so many terrible chemicals all around us that it feels like an over reaction, when it's actually the exact opposite -- manufacturers have made many a deal with the devil.
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
LorenPechtel|4 years ago
Everything has some amount of lead back from the days when it was used recklessly. Everything has some amount of mercury that's still going up smokestacks. (Now we catch most of it--not all of it!) Plants pick up some arsenic from the soil--for medical reasons I eat a lot of rice and it's enough of an issue I make sure to buy rice grown in low-arsenic areas.