From http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html
> For chemicals that are listed as causing cancer, the "no significant risk level” is defined as the level of exposure that would result in not more than one excess case of cancer in 100,000 individuals exposed to the chemical over a 70-year lifetime. In other words, a person exposed to the chemical at the “no significant risk level” for 70 years would not have more than a “one in 100,000” chance of developing cancer as a result of that exposure.
> For chemicals that are listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm, the “no observable effect level” is determined by identifying the level of exposure that has been shown to not pose any harm to humans or laboratory animals. Proposition 65 then requires this “no observable effect level” to be divided by 1,000 in order to provide an ample margin of safety. Businesses subject to Proposition 65 are required to provide a warning if they cause exposures to chemicals listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm that exceed 1/1000th of the “no observable effect level.”
"Since Soylent is marketed as a meal replacement, users may be chronically exposed to lead and cadmium concentrations that exceed California's safe harbor level. We’ve worked with a few companies making protein powders and they just need to look at their ingredients and investigate."
Well, if it's extortion, they're doing a great job sounding legit. Maybe Soylent has a problem sourcing their ingredients from reputable providers? A low cost target was a big part of its appeal, so I could understand if they were aggressive in finding an affordable business partner to provide materials.
As an aside, maybe we should try to avoid linking to sites who bar copying article excerpts to the clipboard. A bit ludicrous to suggest that their article's copyright justifies this silly barely-DRM-measure.