I have a love-hate relationship with The Golden State. On one hand, it is home to some of the most beautiful areas you can find in nature. It is vast and interesting, with an abundance of gorgeous deserts, forests, beaches, and everything in between. The city of Los Angeles is just plain cool and is a cultural circus worthy of a weekend visit from time to time. But California is also home to some of the dumbest laws on the books, especially concerning public health.
One of those stupid laws in the news recently is commonly known as Proposition 65, and requires the labeling of anything accessible to the public that may contain even trace amounts of any of the 900+ chemicals on its master list. If you have ever picked up a packaged food or supplement and saw a label warning you that the product in question contained chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects, then you have witnessed firsthand what Prop 65 created. In recent news, a California court ruled that coffee be added to the portfolio of products that bear a carcinogen warning label, much to the chagrin of reasonable scientists and nutritionists.
What's wrong with the court's ruling - and Proposition 65 as a whole - is two-fold. First, as many scientists and nutritionists have already shown numerous times, coffee does not cause cancer. Although there is evidence that acrylamide may be carcinogenic (so far only to non-human animals, and only when exposed to large doses), and coffee does contain trace amounts of this chemical due to the process of roasting coffee beans, there is no substantial evidence that drinking coffee produces any increased risk of cancer. Requiring a label that unnecessarily scares consumers away from something that is harmless, and may actually even have some health benefits to it, is nonsensical and only further empowers those on the fringes (see GMO labeling and laws in Europe for further examples).
Second, slapping a warning label on anything containing one of 900 different chemicals is onerous, excessive, and will only lead to people slowly becoming less and less sure of what is really harmful, and what is not. When everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted.
Warnings should be real. They should inform individuals of an actual threat to their safety and an increased risk of harm. The key word there is "increased". We all deal with risk every day, but when we see a warning label on something, we understand that our chance of something bad happening to us will probably increase if we don't heed its advice. However, as we become more and more inundated with warning labels it is likely that we will actually become less and less inclined to pay attention to them, especially when the labels themselves seem to become increasingly frivolous.
Warnings should be real. They should inform individuals of an actual threat to their safety and an increased risk of harm. The key word there is "increased". We all deal with risk every day, but when we see a warning label on something, we understand that our chance of something bad happening to us will probably increase if we don't heed its advice. However, as we become more and more inundated with warning labels it is likely that we will actually become less and less inclined to pay attention to them, especially when the labels themselves seem to become increasingly frivolous.
As for me, right now I am waiting for a scientific study that shows that Disneyland visitors actually are at an increased risk for cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm compared to non-Disneyland visitors. Maybe then, I will change my mind about Proposition 65. Until then, I will continue to drink my coffee and visit with Mickey whenever I can.
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