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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

These warnings are worse than useless. Since they usually don't actually name the substance, let alone quantify or contextualize the risks, I have no say of using the information.

If I see a warning, it could mean that there are harmful, odorless chemicals being emitted by some manufacturing process. Or it could mean I'm near a parking facility. Or it could mean they're serving alcohol somewhere in the venue. There's a huge difference between those three, but the warning posted is identical.

They're worse than useless because they actively desensitize people to actionable information by overloading them with unactionable information.

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Right, which is why if I was a company producing cancer-causing things, I would push for as many things to be included on the list as possible. If you can't avoid having your product labeled as cancer causing, make sure EVERYTHING is labeled as cancer causing.

"It's Toasted."

This is a very important point to make because it starts to devalue the warning and desensitize people to it to the point of meaninglessness.

Yep, bought a set of non-toxic chalk pastels for my son and found the generic "know to cause cancer" warning. I had to go to the manufacturer web site and look up the MSDS report. Turns out the white chalk (presumably) contains Titanium Dioxide—you know, what makes some sunscreens white. It wasn't clear if nanoparticles are the concern or just that TiO2 is just on the list.

Many cosmetically coated pharmaceuticals also use TiO2 in the coating formulation, to make the coating nice and shiny white. Iron Oxide is another common pigment used for coating tablets and pellets.

In addition, I once noticed that some gourmet "natural" bottled juice drinks had silica on the ingredients list, to give the appearance of having some sediment in the bottle.

bottled juice drinks had silica on the ingredients list, to give the appearance of having some sediment

Are you sure it isn't used for the opposite reason? Silicon Dioxide (silica) can be used as a suspending agent, so seems like it may have been added to prevent the natural sediment from collecting at the bottom.

I can only find references on google to cucumber having silica on a bunch of health food/fad blogs. Presumably the gourmet brands are adding extra to capitalize on this.

If they wanted sediment, it would be cheaper to just add some of the actual fruit sediment they already have from earlier in the juicing process, rather than purchasing another ingredient.

link/pics? is that's actually a thing?

It's been years.

Just because the FDA says it's OK doesn't mean you should be putting it on your face...

It doesn't "start", that has already happened with California prop 65 warnings. They are literally everywhere, just saw one today is a coffeeshop. Maybe they are super-villains trying to kill California population one cup of coffee at the time, but I haven't seen anybody to pay any attention to that sign. In fact, see here: https://www.barefootcoffee.com/pages/prop-65 Nobody I know was ever paying any attention to this. Of course, this one is actually a better warning - most of them do not have any details. The devaluing has already run its course, and it's 100% worthless now.

As someone that lives outside of the state, it's almost a hobby of mine to collect prop 65 warnings.

I've seen it on everything from food to juices and hammers to cars.

The running joke about my friends is "I'm sure glad I don't live in California or all this stuff would give me cancer"

I once bought a spool of string that had a prop65 warning on it. It's true the warnings are useless, because they don't list the harmful ingredient (lead contamination? outgassing of plastic additives?) and they don't say what activities are risky (can this spool of string cause problems if I don't touch it?)

I want a sign that has a Prop 65 warning just because of the sign itself.

Yup. This is a huge flaw in the CA proposition system.

"Should we warn people if cancer-causing chemicals are used in the construction of a building?"

Sure. I mean, that makes sense, right? However, the net aggregate of these (often conflicting) propositions is extremely counterproductive.

I usually refer people to https://spurvoterguide.org/ (even if you don't agree point-by-point, it's a sensible baseline across everything) - often things that look sensible on the face of it are really impractical.

Strong agree. My desk chair contains chemicals known to cause cancer in the state of California. Does that mean it outgassed some fumes in the factory, will release fumes when burned, will give me skin cancer just to sit on, or is only dangerous if I eat it? Beats me; A, B, and D all seem plausible, and C seems unlikely given consumer protection laws, but it doesn't give me enough information to know.

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I've seen the warnings on little plaques on buildings. What does it tell me? Not a thing! It could be anything at all in a 20-some-odd story apartment building.

Ya I see the warning that elements known to California to cause cancer are present posted all over. OK so what now?

Absolutely agree. Been a while since I visited California, but if course noticed the random cancer signs.

Asked people what they were about/referring to, and no one could actually tell me!

agreed

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