• StarFlower
    +6

    Not living in CA myself, my immediate reaction was exactly the same as leweb's. That said, I appreciate the thoughtful points that AdelleChattre also brought up.

    Still, after reading the article I feel like there should be SOME sort of pre-agreed defined threshold at which the warning must be triggered. For example, how many ppm's of a carcinogen is considered warning-label-worthy? There should be some sort of objective standard for it, yet it seems from the article that there isn't such a thing.

    Because without an objective standard like that, so much stuff can wind up with a warning, that people might believe that drinking a cup of coffee a day has the same cancer risk as smoking cigarettes daily.

    In that regard, I'm happy not to live in CA. I also feel it's a shame that this sort of thing is being decided via lawsuits. The article says "the defense was burdened with showing that acrylamide in coffee wouldn't cause one or more cases of cancer for every 100,000 people, but the judge said that the risk had not been properly evaluated". I'm not saying in my comment that there is no cancer being caused, just that there is a lawsuit about something whose risks are not fully clear yet. To me, that seems frustrating and inefficient.

    • Appaloosa
      +11

      California is ruled by lawyers who try to make money off of everything. I certainly appreciate that, because you know, it keeps us honest.