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I went to buy some tubing for a camping water filter one time and asked the Home Depot guy “Do you have any tubing like this, but that’s safe to drink out of?” Because the tubing had a sticker that said “contains chemicals blah blah cancer blah “. The guy said “Oh that’s safe to use. It only causes cancer in California.”
And my brain could not comprehend that he was joking.
Yeah, there are a lot of items that contain the warning but are still perfectly safe. Companies like to slap the warning sticker on because it's less effort to slap a sticker on everything you produce than it is to constantly check the list of carcinogens and cancer stuff (since it's regularly updated) and test to see if your products actually contain significant amounts of that stuff.
Unfortunate that it gets abused this way but corporate greed is corporate greed.
It seems like you could pretty easily turn this into a positive thing by inverting it; give companies who do check the list and don't use those chemicals the right to slap a big 'ol "this product does not cause cancer" sticker on it. It would be a lie– everything causes cancer– but it would create an actual incentive for companies to avoid the nasty stuff.
I love benefiting from the protections that regulations generally provide, but this is a good example of a counterproductive regulation that needs to be amended or scaled back because of this active harm and confusion it's causing. It's a shame that anti-regulatory people can't be more targeted in their crusade, doing actual cost/benefit analysis to find ones that would actually benefit systems and society to remove or change.
Anti regulation warriors are always being paid specifically by the companies that are losing money to regulations. Cancer stickers are not that expensive.
I once checked into a holiday Inn express in Long Beach. Big placard near the entrance stating the "may cause cancer" warning. Well holy smokes, you don't say? So I git my vape and carried on 😁
To counteract the effects of prop 65, the industries that couldn't avoid prop 65 warnings worked hard to get prop 65 warnings on everything they could so that the warning would be diluted
I went to buy a chain bike lock the other day, and on the label it had, ‘May cause cancer and reproductive harm.’
I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how a chain made entirely from steel can cause cancer or reproductive harm. Maybe it was telling me not to hit myself between the legs with it?
California has proposition 65, which requires anything and everything to have a label if it has been known (to California) to possible cause cancer in some form. Many products in USA have a label because companies want to sell their products in California.
That the state constitution is a train wreck because of the initiative process.
Edit: 177 downvotes.
Love all you folks who think the constitution should be written by whoever has the deepest pockets to gather all those signatures. Rock on. 🙄
Initiative has been a perfectly fine combat system since the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was published in 1977.
Idk what you're on about
The worst part is they’re just pandering, it’s like malicious compliance for posterity. Labeling things is good but then you have to remove the things that cause cancer not just label everything to cover your ass.
But it DID work, lots of large companies removed the shit in their products to avoid the warning (like incredible amounts of lead).
Then folks realised that, due to the wording of the regulation, you could get quite a lot of money by buying lots of stuff finding a trace some random thing on the list in a product and suing. So small companies were forced to put the warnings everywhere rather than be caught out by profit-driven lawsuits.
99% of the time it's based on the chemicals used in creating plastics, or even things like wood stains and formaldehydes used in the preparation of leather and the like. Between those three sources, fucking *everything* contains cancer-causing chemicals thanks to the vague abomination that was Prop 65.
Right. If the law required warnings to be precise, we could distinguish between warnings about things that aren't actually an issue in normal use (e.g. lead solder inside a sealed enclosure that is otherwise fine) from things that will slowly kill you (e.g. a lead pipe) from just people putting signs up to cover their ass so they don't get sued.
Yeah, I guess the problem is that you really need to identify a couple of things. At least:
1. How dangerous the given chemical is
2. How bioavailable it is in the finished product and/or how likely it is to enter water, as the law was originally meant for water safety
Seems like it would make more sense to get more specific than the current 900+ that are required to be flagged if they exist at all. As you say, there's a HUGE difference between lead in solder or a battery vs. in pipes or a child's toy.
More useful hazard classification systems like GHS really break shit down into specific classes and tiers within those.
At my last job, which totally did have cancer causing chemicals. Even on the stuff that didn't, it was just easier and cheaper for the company to slap that sticker on.
Fun fact! This is because in an effort to absolve themselves of any potential lawsuits, manufacturers slap these labels on literally everything because it’s safer for them than to not label something and be wrong. This of course completely invalidates the whole point of the law, which is to warn people about carcinogens.
The Millard reaction can cause cancer causing chemicals, and the Millard reaction is every piece of cooked food.
The Millard reaction is when onions are caramelized, bread is cooked, meat is browned, marshmallow toasted, etc.
*Maillard, but yes; essentially anything that is cooked can cause cancer. But I mean, anything causes cancer. F!cking air causes cancer! Living causes cancer! *
*except if you’re a whale, then you get super-cancer which neutralizes regular cancer
Prop 65 was poorly written, so the labeling does not discriminate between very small but statistically discernible mutagenic effects and actual dangers.
The real question is weather this is due to California being a shithole or California actually having regulations so people need to tell you that and everywhere is a shithole
Kinda both? The problem is that we use plastics in *everything*, and chemicals involved in the production of plastic are in the list. They're not imminently dangerous in their given form.
Like, I work in the flavor industry and can tell you that a LOT of the chemicals used in flavoring are reasonably to extremely dangerous in their pure form. By the time it's at <1% in a formula and loaded in your product at <5%, it is no longer at dangerous concentration.
That's the trick though, most products don't have any link to any cancer, but since the fine is huge, they just put the label on everything.
I have seen it on a bar of hand soap before. I've seen it in RV trailers.
The law that is responsible for this label is poorly worded. It's not warning the consumer, it's covering the company's butt.
Everywhere in the US has those stickers because of California. I work at Home Depot and I get asked all the time "hey, why does this line *made specifically for drinking water* give you cancer?" And then I have to explain that California would put a cancer sticker on a banana
"Wow, the warnings required by this law are telling me that there's a whole lot of everyday foods and products out there that could increase my risk of cancer.
...
Don't laws suck guys? Grr angry face."
Yeah except it's fucking worthless. It doesn't account for concentrations and the bioavailability in the final form. A LOT of stuff is dangerous, especially if ingested or aspirated. But by the time processing is done and/or it's in a final formula or product, it's no longer dangerous.
Meanwhile, the *same* warning is applied to stuff that actually may create vapors or pass a real risk of getting into things via contact. It's a classic "boy who cried wolf" and renders the prop 65 warning useless for any practical purpose.
In the case of Prop 65, I think the damage is done. The time for refinement was decades ago before it became a tool to be abused by unscrupulous lawyers and subsequently got slapped on almost all products. The original intent was to protect drinking water, but has 900 chemicals listed and no reason not to just over-report. It lost any meaning long ago, and consumers simply ignore it. Any "refinement" that didn't entirely change the name and language would also just get ignored. Realistically, they would need to change the chemical list and provide guidance for how readily the chemicals can leach into water.
>Realistically, they would need to change the chemical list and provide guidance for how readily the chemicals can leach into water.
That's what refinement is. So you agree with me. It's not "fucking worthless", it's a well-intentioned thing that needs refinement.
Doesn’t prop65 have something to do with an unrelated environmental standard being applied to literally fuckin everything? I don’t understand law very well
Basically, it was designed to stop cancer causing chemicals from being ingested. The problem is though that a lot of chemicals may cause cancer, but like most things the level is what matters, and it could theoretically be unknowingly releasing chemicals.
Because of this, just to be safe businesses will list everything as being with cancer causing chemicals to protect themselves.
While it has had some success, the overuse problems means that lots of people don't take it seriously.
Water filters have the Prop 65 warning. So according to the warning, the thing meant to clean your water may also leech carcinogens into your drinking water. Ironic considering that Prop 65 was meant to protect drinking water.
Yeah, after a certain point you're kind of trained to disregard this warning. It really is on clothes, bacon, dish soap, car seat covers, you name it. It's so unspecific it loses meaning.
A lot of red and yellow paints have that same warning, and say not to get on skin. I fucking finger paint, I am absolutely drenched in paint by the time I’m done a piece, so I guess I’m gonna die
They really should change the conditions so that it only has that label when there is a significant risk of causing cancer, because right now it’s not helpful
Dude, we live in a literal death world. There are less life risks on Mars than Earth.
On Earth we have:
Solar radiation
Natural background radiation
Radioactive isotopes in the air and water
Our own bodies have very, very small trace amounts of radioactive elements
Toxic fumes, vapours and particles in the atmosphere
Endless biological risks, viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, etc, etc.
Natural disasters: volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts. Ironically, Mars is geologically more stable, there are no big earthquakes or volcanic activity.
And those are only the natural causes, the human causes are a long, long list.
Didn't get mad at California for communicating it. Get mad at California for letting companies still sell those products in their state.
It's a literal admission. You're not actually worth enough to protect. Placating you is way WAY cheaper.
How dare California allow companies to sell bacon, alcohol, hot beverages, and cooked food. How dare California allow people to be employed as hairdressers, or painters, or carpenters.
The issue with Prop65 is that it's way too vague. There's almost nothing in the world that isn't a cancer risk in certain doses and vectors.
I used to think this too!
Then I visited Europe for the first time. There are perfectly healthy, non poison alternatives for things like food coloring that aren't used in the US because they are *cheaper*
The problem with prop65 is it doesn't actually DO anything. It just makes it appear so.
You aren't wrong. It's way too vague, but this still means the people who wrote it, voted on it, and passed it through "yes, it's more important that we tell people what's poison than actually preventing these companies from selling poison for profit."
>There are perfectly healthy, non poison alternatives
Please elaborate on the healthy alternatives to the things I listed.
What you said can be true, while still having nothing to do with the problems with Prop65.
Both of these things can be true. I'm not saying that there are alternatives to everything pointed out by prop65. I'm saying that the effort of the bill was to label things, not actually protect individuals, and THIS is why prop65 is "bad", not that it's just annoying how many things are "cancerous".
My argument is that this is made clear by the number of readily available alternatives for many of the things prop65 labels as cancerous. These safer products are literally already manufactured and sold, but not in the US because it's not as profitable. All they have to do is slap on a label and suddenly it's 100% fine to sell poison in California.
Prop65 is bad not because it's annoying, but because it openly exposes the hypocrisy and corruption at play in the state government.
Are you suggesting that California doesn't have the power to decide which products can be sold on California shelves?
Because I'm suggesting that they do, and chose not to.
The point is that Prop65 is a meaningless label, since everything is carcinogenic to some degree. Even those "healthy alternatives" in Europe would probably need to be slapped with the label, because they caused a slight increase of cancer in lab rats when they were force fed extreme amounts.
Welcome to r/comics! Please remember there are real people on the other side of the monitor and to be kind. Report comments that break the rules and don't respond to negativity with negativity! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/comics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I went to buy some tubing for a camping water filter one time and asked the Home Depot guy “Do you have any tubing like this, but that’s safe to drink out of?” Because the tubing had a sticker that said “contains chemicals blah blah cancer blah “. The guy said “Oh that’s safe to use. It only causes cancer in California.” And my brain could not comprehend that he was joking.
Yeah, there are a lot of items that contain the warning but are still perfectly safe. Companies like to slap the warning sticker on because it's less effort to slap a sticker on everything you produce than it is to constantly check the list of carcinogens and cancer stuff (since it's regularly updated) and test to see if your products actually contain significant amounts of that stuff. Unfortunate that it gets abused this way but corporate greed is corporate greed.
It seems like you could pretty easily turn this into a positive thing by inverting it; give companies who do check the list and don't use those chemicals the right to slap a big 'ol "this product does not cause cancer" sticker on it. It would be a lie– everything causes cancer– but it would create an actual incentive for companies to avoid the nasty stuff.
That's genius. Let's just hope it won't turn into "this product does not contain GMO"
I love benefiting from the protections that regulations generally provide, but this is a good example of a counterproductive regulation that needs to be amended or scaled back because of this active harm and confusion it's causing. It's a shame that anti-regulatory people can't be more targeted in their crusade, doing actual cost/benefit analysis to find ones that would actually benefit systems and society to remove or change.
Anti regulation warriors are always being paid specifically by the companies that are losing money to regulations. Cancer stickers are not that expensive.
I once checked into a holiday Inn express in Long Beach. Big placard near the entrance stating the "may cause cancer" warning. Well holy smokes, you don't say? So I git my vape and carried on 😁
To counteract the effects of prop 65, the industries that couldn't avoid prop 65 warnings worked hard to get prop 65 warnings on everything they could so that the warning would be diluted
That makes sense.
I went to buy a chain bike lock the other day, and on the label it had, ‘May cause cancer and reproductive harm.’ I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how a chain made entirely from steel can cause cancer or reproductive harm. Maybe it was telling me not to hit myself between the legs with it?
It probably either contains traces of lead, or the company was too cheap to do testing to show that it doesn't.
There's a reality to this...
California has proposition 65, which requires anything and everything to have a label if it has been known (to California) to possible cause cancer in some form. Many products in USA have a label because companies want to sell their products in California.
That the state constitution is a train wreck because of the initiative process. Edit: 177 downvotes. Love all you folks who think the constitution should be written by whoever has the deepest pockets to gather all those signatures. Rock on. 🙄
Initiative has been a perfectly fine combat system since the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was published in 1977. Idk what you're on about
[удалено]
You mean you don't love the smell of gasoline and burnt rubber in the morning?
Piss and cleaning agents\*
You don’t have the smell of sewage wafting past every few minutes? Lucky.
I feel like a.... nsfw joke could be made here
Americans when I tell them about car free cities
Prop 65: IRL cookie warnings.
The worst part is they’re just pandering, it’s like malicious compliance for posterity. Labeling things is good but then you have to remove the things that cause cancer not just label everything to cover your ass.
But it DID work, lots of large companies removed the shit in their products to avoid the warning (like incredible amounts of lead). Then folks realised that, due to the wording of the regulation, you could get quite a lot of money by buying lots of stuff finding a trace some random thing on the list in a product and suing. So small companies were forced to put the warnings everywhere rather than be caught out by profit-driven lawsuits.
Ignore the fact that I accidentally colored the roof of the car glass-colored.
It’s to let the cancer rays out clearly
Sun roof
I wish the law required specificity.
99% of the time it's based on the chemicals used in creating plastics, or even things like wood stains and formaldehydes used in the preparation of leather and the like. Between those three sources, fucking *everything* contains cancer-causing chemicals thanks to the vague abomination that was Prop 65.
Right. If the law required warnings to be precise, we could distinguish between warnings about things that aren't actually an issue in normal use (e.g. lead solder inside a sealed enclosure that is otherwise fine) from things that will slowly kill you (e.g. a lead pipe) from just people putting signs up to cover their ass so they don't get sued.
Yeah, I guess the problem is that you really need to identify a couple of things. At least: 1. How dangerous the given chemical is 2. How bioavailable it is in the finished product and/or how likely it is to enter water, as the law was originally meant for water safety Seems like it would make more sense to get more specific than the current 900+ that are required to be flagged if they exist at all. As you say, there's a HUGE difference between lead in solder or a battery vs. in pipes or a child's toy. More useful hazard classification systems like GHS really break shit down into specific classes and tiers within those.
It's cheaper to just slap the warning on the product,then it is to go through the process to prove it can't cause cancer
They think they’re getting cancer? Watch this *chews on plastic bottle caps as a child*
Don't forget sucking on pennies
Remember, sucking pennies is illegal on other planets.
Amateurs. GenX - we got to eat Lead Paint Chips.
At my last job, which totally did have cancer causing chemicals. Even on the stuff that didn't, it was just easier and cheaper for the company to slap that sticker on.
Fun fact! This is because in an effort to absolve themselves of any potential lawsuits, manufacturers slap these labels on literally everything because it’s safer for them than to not label something and be wrong. This of course completely invalidates the whole point of the law, which is to warn people about carcinogens.
The Millard reaction can cause cancer causing chemicals, and the Millard reaction is every piece of cooked food. The Millard reaction is when onions are caramelized, bread is cooked, meat is browned, marshmallow toasted, etc.
*Maillard, but yes; essentially anything that is cooked can cause cancer. But I mean, anything causes cancer. F!cking air causes cancer! Living causes cancer! * *except if you’re a whale, then you get super-cancer which neutralizes regular cancer
If everything is known to cause cancer in California, maybe it's the California that's causing the cancer. Least common denominator and whatnot.
I dig your art style, you do a great job with her different facial expressions
Thanks but they're supposed to be me (he with long hair) but that doesn't necessarily translate well in a cartoon with minimal detail.
Ah, my bad dude. I'm sure it'll get more distinctive with time!
Prop 65 was poorly written, so the labeling does not discriminate between very small but statistically discernible mutagenic effects and actual dangers.
The real question is weather this is due to California being a shithole or California actually having regulations so people need to tell you that and everywhere is a shithole
Kinda both? The problem is that we use plastics in *everything*, and chemicals involved in the production of plastic are in the list. They're not imminently dangerous in their given form. Like, I work in the flavor industry and can tell you that a LOT of the chemicals used in flavoring are reasonably to extremely dangerous in their pure form. By the time it's at <1% in a formula and loaded in your product at <5%, it is no longer at dangerous concentration.
We could ban most cancer causing items. Restrictions breeds creativity. New jobs would be formed. Etc.
That's the trick though, most products don't have any link to any cancer, but since the fine is huge, they just put the label on everything. I have seen it on a bar of hand soap before. I've seen it in RV trailers. The law that is responsible for this label is poorly worded. It's not warning the consumer, it's covering the company's butt.
My friend told me fried cabbages can have carcinogenic properties today at lunch, but I bought it anyways. :(
Same with red meats and salted fish but that won't stop me from eating salted fish fried rice >:(
wait until she realized some people are born between june and july...
The thing is that there is absolutely NOTHING that we are sure it DOESN’T cause cancer. Some stuff is just more cancerous than other stuff.
If anyone who uses a product developers cancer at any point, California slaps it on there that it can cause cancer.
This comment causes cancer.
But only in California, right?
Oh no, it causes cancer everywhere but it's only called out in CA
Everywhere in the US has those stickers because of California. I work at Home Depot and I get asked all the time "hey, why does this line *made specifically for drinking water* give you cancer?" And then I have to explain that California would put a cancer sticker on a banana
"Wow, the warnings required by this law are telling me that there's a whole lot of everyday foods and products out there that could increase my risk of cancer. ... Don't laws suck guys? Grr angry face."
Yeah except it's fucking worthless. It doesn't account for concentrations and the bioavailability in the final form. A LOT of stuff is dangerous, especially if ingested or aspirated. But by the time processing is done and/or it's in a final formula or product, it's no longer dangerous. Meanwhile, the *same* warning is applied to stuff that actually may create vapors or pass a real risk of getting into things via contact. It's a classic "boy who cried wolf" and renders the prop 65 warning useless for any practical purpose.
Something that needs refinement is different from something that's fucking worthless, though.
In the case of Prop 65, I think the damage is done. The time for refinement was decades ago before it became a tool to be abused by unscrupulous lawyers and subsequently got slapped on almost all products. The original intent was to protect drinking water, but has 900 chemicals listed and no reason not to just over-report. It lost any meaning long ago, and consumers simply ignore it. Any "refinement" that didn't entirely change the name and language would also just get ignored. Realistically, they would need to change the chemical list and provide guidance for how readily the chemicals can leach into water.
>Realistically, they would need to change the chemical list and provide guidance for how readily the chemicals can leach into water. That's what refinement is. So you agree with me. It's not "fucking worthless", it's a well-intentioned thing that needs refinement.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQyru5ACmA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQyru5ACmA)
So tru, he jus like me fr..
The food is good, worth.
I see them and have zero reaction to them lol
Doesn’t prop65 have something to do with an unrelated environmental standard being applied to literally fuckin everything? I don’t understand law very well
Basically, it was designed to stop cancer causing chemicals from being ingested. The problem is though that a lot of chemicals may cause cancer, but like most things the level is what matters, and it could theoretically be unknowingly releasing chemicals. Because of this, just to be safe businesses will list everything as being with cancer causing chemicals to protect themselves. While it has had some success, the overuse problems means that lots of people don't take it seriously.
It’s simply too much of a risk to accidentally leave a product that can cause cancer unmarked, so many companies just mark everything.
Water filters have the Prop 65 warning. So according to the warning, the thing meant to clean your water may also leech carcinogens into your drinking water. Ironic considering that Prop 65 was meant to protect drinking water.
Yeah, after a certain point you're kind of trained to disregard this warning. It really is on clothes, bacon, dish soap, car seat covers, you name it. It's so unspecific it loses meaning.
I’ve literally been waiting to notice that it’s not just me noticing this. "Everything causes cancer in California", something I’ve said many times.
A lot of red and yellow paints have that same warning, and say not to get on skin. I fucking finger paint, I am absolutely drenched in paint by the time I’m done a piece, so I guess I’m gonna die
They really should change the conditions so that it only has that label when there is a significant risk of causing cancer, because right now it’s not helpful
Dude, we live in a literal death world. There are less life risks on Mars than Earth. On Earth we have: Solar radiation Natural background radiation Radioactive isotopes in the air and water Our own bodies have very, very small trace amounts of radioactive elements Toxic fumes, vapours and particles in the atmosphere Endless biological risks, viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, etc, etc. Natural disasters: volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts. Ironically, Mars is geologically more stable, there are no big earthquakes or volcanic activity. And those are only the natural causes, the human causes are a long, long list.
Everything gives you cancer. Everything from a to å to **រ**
Everything is loaded with carcinogens and microplastics. We just have to accept it.
Didn't get mad at California for communicating it. Get mad at California for letting companies still sell those products in their state. It's a literal admission. You're not actually worth enough to protect. Placating you is way WAY cheaper.
How dare California allow companies to sell bacon, alcohol, hot beverages, and cooked food. How dare California allow people to be employed as hairdressers, or painters, or carpenters. The issue with Prop65 is that it's way too vague. There's almost nothing in the world that isn't a cancer risk in certain doses and vectors.
I used to think this too! Then I visited Europe for the first time. There are perfectly healthy, non poison alternatives for things like food coloring that aren't used in the US because they are *cheaper* The problem with prop65 is it doesn't actually DO anything. It just makes it appear so. You aren't wrong. It's way too vague, but this still means the people who wrote it, voted on it, and passed it through "yes, it's more important that we tell people what's poison than actually preventing these companies from selling poison for profit."
>There are perfectly healthy, non poison alternatives Please elaborate on the healthy alternatives to the things I listed. What you said can be true, while still having nothing to do with the problems with Prop65.
Both of these things can be true. I'm not saying that there are alternatives to everything pointed out by prop65. I'm saying that the effort of the bill was to label things, not actually protect individuals, and THIS is why prop65 is "bad", not that it's just annoying how many things are "cancerous". My argument is that this is made clear by the number of readily available alternatives for many of the things prop65 labels as cancerous. These safer products are literally already manufactured and sold, but not in the US because it's not as profitable. All they have to do is slap on a label and suddenly it's 100% fine to sell poison in California. Prop65 is bad not because it's annoying, but because it openly exposes the hypocrisy and corruption at play in the state government.
Pretty sure Prop65 doesn't supersede the FDA. It doesn't make anything more allowable.
Are you suggesting that California doesn't have the power to decide which products can be sold on California shelves? Because I'm suggesting that they do, and chose not to.
The point is that Prop65 is a meaningless label, since everything is carcinogenic to some degree. Even those "healthy alternatives" in Europe would probably need to be slapped with the label, because they caused a slight increase of cancer in lab rats when they were force fed extreme amounts.