Slashdot Mirror
California Bypasses Science To Label Coffee a Carcinogen (undark.org)
travers_r writes: Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle affirmed last week that all coffee sold in California must come with a warning label stating that chemicals in coffee (acrylamide, a substance created naturally during the brewing process) are known to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. But judges, journalists, and environmental advocates fail to recognize the critical difference between probably and certainly, which fuels the inaccurate belief that cancer is mostly caused by things in the environment. From a report at Undark: "IARC is one of the leading scientific bodies in the world, and it is also one of several expert panels on which California relies for scientific opinions in such cases. The IARC has concluded that while there is sufficient evidence to consider acrylamide carcinogenic in experimental animals, there is insufficient evidence for carcinogenicity in humans. Therefore, its overall evaluation is that 'acrylamide is probably carcinogenic to humans.'
[...]
Leading experts, in fact, believe that roughly two-thirds of all cancers are the result of mutations to DNA that are caused by natural bodily processes, not exposure to environmental chemicals. This is quite the opposite of the prevailing belief among the public that most cancers are caused by exogenous substances imposed on us by the products and technologies of the modern world. It's this belief -- this fear -- that prompted voters to pass Proposition 65 in 1986. It was a time when fear of hazardous waste and industrial chemicals was high, when chemophobia -- a blanket fear of anything having to do with the word 'chemicals' -- was being seared into the public's mind."
[...]
Leading experts, in fact, believe that roughly two-thirds of all cancers are the result of mutations to DNA that are caused by natural bodily processes, not exposure to environmental chemicals. This is quite the opposite of the prevailing belief among the public that most cancers are caused by exogenous substances imposed on us by the products and technologies of the modern world. It's this belief -- this fear -- that prompted voters to pass Proposition 65 in 1986. It was a time when fear of hazardous waste and industrial chemicals was high, when chemophobia -- a blanket fear of anything having to do with the word 'chemicals' -- was being seared into the public's mind."
They do put those labels on an incredible amount of stuff. I guess I understand the original intent of the warnings, and it seems like they had good intentions. But there comes a point when they need to re-evaluate the utility. When warning labels are on almost everything you see, they reach a point of semantic satiation, where they lose all meaning.
As a product liability issue, if I were selling physical products in California, I'd be tempted to put a warning label on everything I sold, regardless of whether they said I had to. That way, I can't get caught when it turns out that some chemical that was used in the preparation of some part turns out to be on the bad list...
Acrylamide is not harmful unless it's in amounts equal to a river of coffee.
The problem is that this is not established. This assumes the threshold model, while California has decided to play it safe and go with the no-threshold model. We don't know which is correct.
I applaud California for sticking to their guns on their labeling law, in the face of all the guff they get. The no-threshold model makes things easier, and a whole lot more profitable, but disguising a potential health hazard for those reasons is not well justified. Californians can still drink all of the possibly-carcinogenic coffee they want, the coffee-pushers just can't pretend that it's all perfectly safe.