I think the labels are over the top. If you make people put big cancer labels on everything which causes cancer and ignore the relative risks of one versus the other, it is impossible to make a rational choice about the issue.

Even a simple color guide would be a huge help.

It should be possible to quantify the increased risk from exposure, use that to weigh disability adjusted life years, and bake a color code from that.

French fries known to cause cancer, but daily consumption would impact by <1 DALY on average -> a far less aggressive label than goes on a bottle of benzene.

> it is impossible to make a rational choice about the issue.

I think this is over-reaching. I agree there should be a better system, but I am perfectly willing to do the work and research the warning. Thus, I am able to make a rational decision based on the best information I can find. As with all science, what is rational today may change as new information becomes available. THat is the price we pay to stay informed, versus ignorance.

The current state of making everything share the same warning directly benefits the companies who sell the most dangerous chemicals.

This is literally the exact opposite outcome of what the measure is supposed to have.

Not following. Are you're saying this is "Gish Gallop" tactic [1]: flood your opponent with so much BS they can't possibly respond?

If so, I see what you are saying: the same level warning for thalidomide vs. something less deadly is a problem. If everything is bad, the bad guys sneak by?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

Process engineers know this as "alarm fatigue":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue

And it's a real thing. It kills people in hospitals because nurses tune out the constant beeps of machines.

I can verify. In the ED I work at, we recently "upgraded" our monitors for vitals in every room. The new system has insanely ill-thought-out defaults that cannot be changed - the settings revert with every new patient. A patient moving a little and thus creating artifact in his/her cardiac rhythm frequently triggers a "v-tach" alarm. It sometimes signals the v-tach alarm even if the patient is in normal sinus rhythm with a slightly widened QRS. If a patient removes the pulse ox for just enough time for the machine to alarm, but then puts it back on, the machine will continue WAILING until somebody can shut it off. Unfortunately, if that patient happens to be a COVID-suspected or positive patient, we do not just walk in the room and fix the issue. The respiratory rate measurement takes its measurement from the cardiac rhythm signal. It works sometimes, but I never have found it to be reliable or accurate. However, the machines default to sounding the exact same loud alarm if it thinks somebody is apneic (nevermind an SPO2 of 100% with a good waveform). Since there are so many rooms being monitored at the staff station all at once, the exact same alarm goes off almost every minute for one thing or another. Ok, here is the point of my agreement with parent - the usual alarm tone went off on a patient with an all-too-familiar "V-Tach" message. I hit the button to silence the stupid thing and found a button to "view event". I hit that button (feeling very annoyed again) just for the sake of never having seen that function yet (like I said, the system is new). What do you know... the patient was in a run of v-tach for several seconds. Pretty useful diagnostic information (and if they never converted, pretty damn important to know to keep them alive).

Yep, that's what I thought you/they meant. I'm glad you admitted it, because it is clearly a matter of opinion, and it seems the only people bothered by this have similar political affiliations (if their post history is any indicator).

Mate, going by politics alone I'd wager "those people" would write my opinions off – I'd get called a filthy statist at best, and if they only knew what I really believed... ;)

But I think you've got this wrong. I absolutely want to know what my exposure is to carcinogens, but in the absence of context it isn't helpful. Very few people are equipped to understand and evaluate the real risks they face – and I count myself in this bucket. That's why regulations and governments are a good thing. That's why I want meaningful warning labels that indicate what risks I face over time, not just "there's a carcinogen here".

I think you are commingling "Think it should be fixed" with "Think it should be trashed entirely". I like the idea of warning labels. I don't like that they are currently not very good at communicating what is actually dangerous. That doesn't mean I want to get rid of them, it means I want them improved.

I agree, and I'd rather know than not know. Especially with things like off-gassing formaldehyde in furniture. It's easy to look around and find something without formaldehyde in it.

So I'm curious what was in the bowl. Is it possible that it had a coating of some sort? The CA website doesn't list kitchen products as a category...

https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/

Prop 65 cancer labeling did actually reduce the incidence of many of the more potent carcinogens in products when it was first enacted. So in that sense it was very successful.

But because of the wording of the measure (no penalty for falsely labeling something as having carcinogens when it doesn't), and how many things can be considered carcinogens (caffeine is just one example), the effectiveness of the label was diluted dramatically in people's minds.

Do you take action based on the labels? I've thought about it, but half the things I own have them, and in some cases it's illegal to make non-california-cancerous alternatives (fire-retardant furniture).

Those who decide what gets a label have no downside to adding the wrong thing, and no upside to incorrectly leaving the label off something. As such if there is even the slightest possibility they mandate the label. Few bother to fight them, so everything has the label.

Roundup is the only case I know of that was successful: it has been well studied and found not cancerous in the vast majority of studies. So the few exceptions are not enough that they can be forced to but a label on - but it is still listed by California, it just doesn't have a label. Based on this success a few others are trying to get their label removed, but I'm not aware of other success.

> found not cancerous in the vast majority of studies

I just spent 30 minutes googling and found the opposite, with CDC, WHO, EPA and EU all in disagreement with one another! Forbes, NYT, and several other sites indicate increases in leukemia, other new evidence, and even a $10B settlement by Bayer (Monsanto's owner) that will keep evidence sealed.

IMO, this is clearly not settled.

So I choose to make a rational decision to NOT to spray RoundUp on my lawn, and to try, to the best of my ability, to avoid purchasing products exposed to it. Hence, I would like a warning label. But if cannot avoid it due to opaque laws, then bummer.

The burden of proof in a court case doesn't require any science. Roundup is used in large quantities by farmers, but the rates of cancer are different only for reasons that are already explained by known causes. in expected amounts.

To the best of my ability. I like being informed as much as possible. But sometimes, yes, it _IS_ exhausting. But that is part of the price we pay to live in a world/country that basically wants to poison us for profit.

I bought it in person at a Korean grocery. It doesn't have any manufacturer label.

Oh, that explains it. I'd steer clear of that. I have two very large Asian grocery stores in my city and there ain't no way I'm going to eat premade frozen bao, gyoza, or noodles manufactured at some sketchball factory in Shenzhen!