Hacker News Reader

Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

The problem I've always found with the California warnings is that they're so damn generic. There's nothing forcing companies to tell you what compound is harmful, where it is, or what it's used for..

A fishing sinker made from lead is pretty obvious when you see that warning. There's only one ingredient, lead, and it's obvious why it's harmful. But when you buy a complex product that says "this product contains chemicals known by the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects", the first thing I want to know is what the chemical is, the second is where it is in the product, and the third is why it's there. Nothing in the warnings makes manufacturers tell you any useful information.

View on HN

Or how much of it there is. Parts per million/billion?

I'm pretty interested in how much cadmium and mercury gets into my system because they're bad news for the brain. At the same time, mercury is also in air so it's kind of inescapable. Parts per billion is interesting information because then I can control how much I ingest the way I do for food that is fattening.

It would be much more useful if it were in the form of "This property contains substances determined by the state of California to be toxic to humans. The site report may be viewed in person at 123 Maple St, Suite 200, San Mateo, or electronically at https: //sitereport.ca.us/ "

Then the print report would basically be a binder full of MSDS-like information sheets, along with the history of measurements recorded on the site.

Online, you could see the threshold levels for single massive exposure and for casual environmental or daily occupational exposures. And maybe enter your age, sex, and weight in kg, to see how likely it is that living in your apartment will kill you.

The generic warning is useless. It ranges from "last month someone found 30cm of thermal receipt paper with bisphenol-A all over it" to "someone once dumped a 55gal drum full of dioxin right into the soil where your vegetable garden is now."

This is the same problem with the cookie law in Europe.

They allowed one single, generic, disclaimer which every site pops up.

If they'd demanded:

- a separate disclaimer for each domain (or at least company) setting a cookie

- a description of the purpose of the cookies (e.g. advertising, remembering log-ins)

Then the law might have actually achieved something.

TBH, you need to put a cookie warning only if you use cookies for stuff like tracking and advertising. Logins and general site functionality are extempt from that.

Basically, cookie warning on site means the site tracks you.

I did not know this. I do not think cookie warning == site tracking. Many of those pop-ups are people thinking they need it due to the law.

That supposes testing of that nature is actually done for every item/location that has one of those warnings. It is not. Testing is expensive. The costs if you lose a lawsuit due to not displaying the warning when you should have, even more so. People are pretty desensitized to seeing the warnings. So the logical decision made by many business owners is to display the warning even if no tests have been conducted showing the presence of the chemicals and sometimes even if there is no reason to believe there are any harmful chemicals at all. There's no penalty for displaying a superfluous warning.

Yes, it does suppose that.

That people display the warning without specific knowledge of a hazardous substance is the fault of the California legislature for passing laws that provide perverse incentives to do that.

If a business could be held liable for posting the warning without a reason why, those warnings would not appear without reason. Ambulance-chaser attorneys perform a kind of arbitrage there, as private-party enforcers, like finding ADA violations at a non-accessible business and suing to force them to settle and make reasonable accommodations, or fight it, pay fines, and make reasonable accommodations. Or like the Florida folks that test their Sunshine Law against various municipal organizations. The munis are forced to settle and open their records, or fight it, pay fines, and open their records.

I guarantee there would be at least one person in California that would go around checking for warnings and asking for the MSDS reports on the hazardous materials on the property. I asked for a MSDS once, and the building manager just about lost his mind. I just thought I smelled toluene, and wanted to check to see if I was right. Their reaction made me think that maybe someone should have been suing someone, and they were just worried that it was going to be me.

As with any complex system, it's the squeaky wheels that get greased. More sensible laws would make California less an object of ridicule for other states. Indiana takes a lot of flak over the pi thing, and Kentucky and Tennessee occasionally get their "ice cream cone in the back pocket" laws waved around, but those are just silly artifacts of law. The California "causes cancer warning" law affects so many businesses, even those outside the state.

Even if they did, would it matter? It would be some chemical term, like the one you see in an ingedient list, that is meaningless to most people.

And these are places, not products...with gardens. Even if they use organic pesticides, they probably still have to put up the warning.

> that is meaningless to most people.

Therefore no people should be allowed to know?

For what it's worth, I'm not in favour of California's labelling requirements either. But just because something is meaningless to the majority of the population doesn't mean it's meaningless to the entire population. And it is specifically the population that is interested in knowing it that finds it least meaningless!

I didn't say allowed or not. Sure, you should know that there are 15 ug of theomacrotasium among a hundred other things in your environment, but then what? Information overload means our decisions can get worse, not better, when presented with more of it.

What would be more meaningful: certifications that act as abstractions for complex problems. Organic kind of acts like this already, and of course there are multiple federal certs for electronics. Having a functioning regulatory system as well as a working civil law system also help.

How about a warning that says "The battery in this cell phone contains an amount of theomacrotasium known to cause cancer if ingested."

That's a completely actionable warning. Don't eat the contents of the battery of your cell phone.

Or how about "This carpet contains formeldahyde, which is known to cause birth defects in pregnant women. Limit exposure to this carpet for a few days after installation."

That's a good warning. That tells me what I need to know, what the risks are, and how to mitigate it.

Hey, if it's just one thing, great! Now, how do you do that for a hundred things? Again, warnings work great for very small numbers of N.

We have to find a middle ground between "has chemicals that may cause cancer" and "a hundred specific chemicals in X quantities that may cause cancer." Abstraction is very necessary as a pragmatic solution, even if full disclosure makes sense as an ideal.

Heck, most places are just doing CYA, they have no idea what specific lists of chemicals their contractors use. For the IoT case, no one has any idea how their devices can be exploited, and merely admit the possibility of exploitation. But that is another issue.

Well, information on how to migitate the cancer risk is already a step forward.

If it is only harmful if ingested you know not to give it to your toddler. If it gives off toxic fumes while burning, well, stay away if you made a fire mistake. etc. The warning itself is pretty useless as it is.

If it is meaningful to only a small portion of the population then that portion should pay for obtaining this information and not force the rest to pay. If you add legal costs these warning like most of regulations are really expensive.

>And these are places, not products

Those places have products that contain the toxic chemical, An apartment building is not poisonous by itself, they contain products that contain the harmful chemical. That's what they should be warning you about.

Ya, but what products? I'm sure California understood that it would be difficult for property managers to do a complete audit, so allowed this warning as a cop out (it might be that they have none of those chemicals, but who knows, we will put up the warning just in case).

It always trickles down. The property managers know who built the buildings. The construction company knows what companies produced the construction materials. The company that made the construction materials knows what chemicals are in them. That's the person who writes the warning, and the construction crew tells the property manager, and the property manager keeps a list in their office for public viewing.

I think it has more to do with the gardeners and maintnence than the orig construction. But ya, they so much as use a floor cleaner from the grocery store, that would have to be documented.

Depends what it's made of. An asbestos apartment building is kinda toxic.

Sure. Also, no one on china trusts each others apartment renovations for this reason, which is why you are expected to re-renovate every time you buy (and your own renovations do nothing for the resale value).

That stuff is actually easy to track down is what I meant. It is the day to day stuff that isn't.

>There's nothing forcing companies to tell you what compound is harmful, where it is.

This is changing. But you still have the problem of over reporting. There are provisions to verify that your use of the material is safe, but it's so much easier, and so much less risky, to just slap the label on.

Some warnings speak of "specific birth defects" which is something greater than a may/might do something. Normally this is reserved for the class of chemicals and drugs that post-thalidomide are known to cause limb-reduction defects.

Funny story, we moved from china to California last year because my wife was pregnant and the environment over there is pretty pllluted. When she saw this warning at the entrance of our new apartment, she began doubting our move (they don't have that in china!).

Kid was born without defects.

When I was a kid I was put on an anti-acne drug known to cause such birth defects. Docs insist that any females wanting the drug be on birth control, some simply not prescribing it to any females who aren't open to a quick termination should they accidentally get pregnant while on the drug. There are things that we know for sure will cause serious harm. Too bad such warnings can get lost in the shuffle.

Interestingly, I want to know none of those things. I'd be more interested in knowing how statistically likely the chemicals are to increase my risk of getting cancer.

I would argue that without the prior information, the statistics are also irrelevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com