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Comment by kw71 | Hacker News Reader

You can ignore it if you like but don't take the choice away from me. I'm rarely in california but I have seen these warnings while traveling there and on products that are distributed throughout the United States. I'm not well educated in biology or chemistry fields and these signs and labels have made me want to investigate, or at least think about something that I normally wouldn't. Because of these I have considered secondhand tobacco smoke (signs in hotels), benzene (on fuel (petrol) dispensers), lead in brass (plumbing fittings), asbestos (automotive brakes, clutches, gaskets), and many others. I think I make better decisions as a result: telling my kid that if he can smell petrol he's too close, and making sure a brass fitting is RoHS if it's used to convey water but I don't always wash my hands after I handle an air hose with brass fittings.

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> Because of these I have considered secondhand tobacco smoke (signs in hotels), benzene (on fuel (petrol) dispensers), lead in brass (plumbing fittings), asbestos (automotive brakes, clutches, gaskets), and many others.

If the regulations were limited to chemicals with the amount of evidence of harm that these examples have, there would be fewer people with issues.

Instead they get applied to these... and coffee, and sand, and lots of other things with very little evidence of harm, to the point that it stops being a signal of evidence of harm and starts being meaningless noise.

There are prop 65 warnings for sand. "This facility performs sandblasting operations. Sand contains silica, a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer."

You can't tell me that this is giving you useful information. The noise is drowning out the signal.

Sandblasting operations are a long-recognized hazard. Not only can you get silicosis but sandblasting is an abrasive process and what else besides the sand is hanging around in the air? Tiny bits of the substrate metal? Zinc (galvanizing coating), Cadmium (another plating), Chromate (paint), Lead (paint)? Is a cured cyanoacrylate paint passivated enough that it's safe to breathe its dust?

When I was a kid I didn't have anyone to tell me and no reminders to wear a respirator.

Edit: after submitting, I realized I've never used "silicon" sand as a blasting abrasive, but only glued to paper or cloth. I typically blast with aluminium oxide, coal slag, or glass beads.

That's a good reason to have a meaningful warning sign up ("do not breathe sandblasting dust"). Unfortunately the prop 65 warning has exactly the opposite effect - hahaha yeah sand whatever - which left me with a false sense of security.

>but don't take the choice away from me

You do realize you can research everything you ingest. Nobody bars you from it.

And there is a public health risk to worthless warning labels. Not to mention the unstated economic cost of trying to navigate and implement these worthless regulations.

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