What is the reason behind California cancer warning labels? Literally everything seems to be causing cancer. I just bought a few s2s maple boards from a local lumber supplier and each one had a sticker saying it’s known to the State of California to cause cancer. A maple board? There’s no treatment or paint on it. It’s just a milled and poorly planed piece of lumber.
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I’m sure your question has been answered but if you’re still checking comments on this post you might get a kick out of this one. I live in NY and ordered a pocket knife from the company Böker. It can with a California cancer warning and I was really surprised. The only thing I can think of is the lubricants on the pivot? Other than that it’s just metal lol
The reason lumber is labeled as a carcinogen is because when you cut it with a power saw, you form very fine particles which you will inhale while working the saw. It’s not really an issue for the occasional home project but it is linked to cancers for people who work in mills, carpentry shops etc and don’t wear respirators or breathing protection.
the goal us to make you confused and not understand what is bad verses normal.
case in point McDonalds (and any other restaurant that sells potatoes) must put up a prop65 warning for the browned potato (ie the crunchy part that is well cooked)
and the places that have really bad chemicals have the same sign, as does every parking lot and building you cannot tell if this is worse then the next sign or place or thing.
thus you ignore them. the goal (by the people who have the real bad stuff is to make theres look ok, not so bad) they won because you cannot tell the difference
Because California will fine the ever living crap out of any company that doesn’t have them on it whether it originates in California or not, regardless of if it could actually cause cancer or not, or even if it’s products are sold in California or not. I believe that California has actually argued in the past that you could potentially get cancer from heavy metals exposure by handling cut lumber. Yes, really.
You also need to realize that California has a ton of extremely low information voters that take many claims like this at face value and never once do question them, which has created a regulatory environment where many people who do not know near as much as they think they do actively campaign to add more and more stuff to those lists. Since California’s government is also in a perpetual state of deficit spending, these fines also make a substantial amount of revenue for the state.
So it’s part blatant extortion by the state of California, part misguided campaigning for further restrictions of certain voters in California.
Basically no other states are willing to admit that almost everything we allow corporations to sell us give people cancer..
It’s far easier to slap a warning sticker on than to prove to California that your product doesn’t contain bad things.
If you’d like a great, in-depth, well-explained answer that gives tons of background information and discusses the effects of the warning labels (including product reformulations to remove known potential carcinogens), you should check out the episode of 99 Percent Invisible all about Prop 65 warnings:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/warning-this-podcast-contains-chemicals-known-to-the-state-of-california-to-cause-cancer-or-other-reproductive-harm/
Prop65 was meant to make companies change their products to switch away from dangerous ingredients. It succeeded in that to a degree, many companies reformulated their products to be safer because of it.
Unfortunately it also opened a door to lawyers simply suing vendors for not having a warning label. Many small businesses didn’t have the means to fight those suits and settled and ended up putting warning labels on their products as a result.
If the consequences are losing lots of money, many will err on the site of caution and just put labels on anything.
This overabundance of warning labels have resulted in some genuine threats flying under the radar.
It was a good attempt ruined by greedy lawyers.
You have to prove the thing doesn’t cause cancer, otherwise, it potentially causes cancer.
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