Warnings, thousands of products sold in California, are great.
“Using the following products,” says one label, “you will be exposed to chemicals known to California to cause cancer, innate flaws or other reproductive damage.”
New research shows that warnings may be acting.
A study published on Wednesday in the magazine Environmental science and technology He found that the California Law on Knowledge Law, which requires a company to warn people of harmful chemicals in their products, ran into many companies to completely stop using these chemicals.
As it turns out, companies do not want to sell a product that has a major warning label, said Dr. Megan Schwarzman, a doctor and an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and author of the Book of Studies.
Combine this with a threat of lawsuits and reputable costs, as well as companies that just want to do the right thing for health, and “it becomes a great motivator for change,” she said.
California holds a list of about 900 chemicals that are known to cause cancer and other health effects. According to the Law on Law and Knowledge of 1986, also known as Prop 65Products that could expose people to the harmful quantities of these chemicals must wear warning stickers.
The critics mocked the measure for a long time, saying that the warnings were so ubiquitous – attached to the dishes, fake leather jackets, even pastries – that they became mostly meaningless in the eyes of customers. But the latest study found that companies, more than consumers, could most influence warnings.
In order to evaluate the effect of the law, researchers have interviewed in 32 global manufacturers and traders who sell clothes, personal care, cleaning and a number of home products. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said PROP 65 encouraged them to repay their products.
Companies can avoid warning stickers if you reduce the level of any Prop 65 chemicals below the “Safe Luke” threshold.
A similar proportion of companies said they were looking at the Prop 65 to determine which chemicals should be avoided. And 63 percent said that the law encouraged them to argue the products they sold outside California.
The US Council of Chemistry, represented by chemical manufacturers, did not immediately respond to the request for commentary on the studio.
No other state has a law like Prop. 65, which requires warnings about such a wide range of products about cancer or reproductive damage. In 2020, New York adopted a more limited law that requires a manufacturer to detect certain chemicals in children’s products and forbid the use of certain chemicals by 2023. Other states have laws aimed at detecting ingredients on stickers.
California, meanwhile, pushes forward. Change in 2018 on the Prop 65 meant that the products began to wear even more specific stickers. Some food and drink cans, for example, can wear stickers that warn that “have linings containing Bispenol A (BPA), a chemical known to the state of California to harm the female reproductive system.”
The latest research is part of a greater effort to analyze the effect of Prop 65 to exposure to people with toxic chemicals. IN A study published last yearResearchers from the Silent Spring and UC Berkeley Institute have found that in the years after certain chemicals listed according to the law, the level of these chemicals in the bodies of people reduced both in California and in the whole country.
However, this research came with a warning. In some examples when the levels of the said chemical decreased, a close substitute for this chemical, potentially with similar adverse effects, increased. The PROP 65 does not have a mechanism for testing alternative chemicals.
This suggested that stronger policies were needed at both the state and the state level to study and regulate thousands of chemicals on the market, said Dr. Schwarzman. “This is so bigger than an individual consumer and what we choose outside the shelf,” she said.
