Do you own a yeti cooler or equivalent? does yours cause cancer in California?

As YouTuber AvE says "known by the state of cancer to cause California". Even more funny nowadays with California metastasizing.

Wow, the trolls love to hate on California.  Is this Fox News or a climbing website?  To the OP, there are a lot of chemicals on the Prop. 65 list.  If the product no longer has the label then I would presume it’s because they’ve manufactured the product without the problematic chemical.  You’re right.  You don’t want your kids ingesting lead.  Sad to think that some people think warning labels are a bigger concern.

mountain man wrote:

It looks like Yeti was sued for not labeling these items with a prop 65 warning.  It appears their coolers themselves do not carry a prop 65 warning any longer.  I don't know if they took the offending chemical out of their manufacturing or what.  So it appears, to anyone who was concerned about it, that they are ok.  I would steer clear from their camp chairs if you have kids who might use them.  Lead is no bueno at any amount.

Actually that's not entirely correct. This article has some perspective on the original intent of Prop-65 and what it has become:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/24/20918131/california-prop-65-toxic-water

An excerpt:

“Every dry cleaner, every restaurant you walk in has a Prop 65 warning in the window,” says Tom Houston, who helped draft the initial bill as chief deputy to then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. “Everybody just ignores that. The major purposes have all been established. The major bad chemicals are off the market, the major bad actors have been corralled by the initiative. Now this is getting down to be almost ridiculous.”

The reason, in part, is that Prop 65 sets very low thresholds for warnings. For birth defects, warnings are required at one-thousandth of the level at which a certain chemical is shown to cause birth defects. With a carcinogen such as lead, it is a maximum of 0.5 micrograms/liter of lead per day, which is below the amount of lead in the average serving size of the majority of balsamic vinegars. (The warning levels for cancer contain a slightly different, but similarly stringent, standard.)

So some of the now nearly 1,000 chemicals on the Prop 65 list — such as benzene — have a scientific consensus as hazards, making enforcement of warning labels for them especially urgent, while others show tenuous evidence of carcinogenic properties in humans. 

Acrylamide, for instance, was added in 1990 after studies in rats linked it to cancer. This chemical — which appears during the process of frying or roasting — has led to cancer warnings on everything from coffee to prune juice in California. But the American Cancer Society notes that there is no connection between acrylamide and cancer, and the FDA writes that “it isn’t feasible to completely eliminate acrylamide from one’s diet … Nor is it necessary.” 

Marc801 C wrote:

"The reason, in part, is that Prop 65 sets very low thresholds for warnings. For birth defects, warnings are required at one-thousandth of the level at which a certain chemical is shown to cause birth defects. With a carcinogen such as lead, it is a maximum of 0.5 micrograms/liter of lead per day, which is below the amount of lead in the average serving size of the majority of balsamic vinegars. (The warning levels for cancer contain a slightly different, but similarly stringent, standard.)"

The quoted paragraph from that article is a little confused. First, while lead is listed under Prop 65 as a carcinogen, it's also listed because it causes reproductive harm and birth defects. The standard of 0.5 micrograms per day is tied to the reproductive harm, not the cancer risk (the level for cancer is 15 micrograms per day, quite a bit higher). The standard, by the way, is 0.5 micrograms per day, not 0.5 micrograms/liter per day. It's a standard measured by a consumer's exposure to the chemical, not a concentration in the product.  

Second, there is no safe level of lead exposure. WHO. Lead accumulates in our bodies over time, so even very low levels of exposure can cause real harm. 

Last, if the author was trying to argue that the standard is too low, then the reference to balsamic vinegars is misplaced. Some balsamic vinegars can have quite high levels of lead--at least one article measures it up to 112 micrograms per liter for certain brands. Moreover, the lead in balsamic vinegar is likely to be anthropogenic, and much of it is likely to come from somewhere in the supply chain. That means the producers could figure out the source and get rid of it, if they wanted to. 

Life; according to the State of California has been known to cause cancer. 

fat dad. it has nothing to do with faux news or hate. If you live anywhere other than California you have been bombarded with labels your entire life that that tell you that the product you are using causes cancer in California.  Its on pretty much everything to the point that it becomes  material for jokes and is no longer taken seriously. the whole cry wolf thing comes into play... and maybe they are correct, and it will cause cancer but if that is the case then take it off the market. just putting a label on everything and then selling it anyway just fosters ridicule and disrespect for the institution that comes up with the labels.  

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

fat dad. it has nothing to do with faux news or hate. If you live anywhere other than California you have been bombarded with labels your entire life that that tell you that the product you are using causes cancer in California.  Its on pretty much everything to the point that it becomes  material for jokes and is no longer taken seriously. the whole cry wolf thing comes into play... and maybe they are correct, and it will cause cancer but if that is the case then take it off the market. just putting a label on everything and then selling it anyway just fosters ridicule and disrespect for the institution that comes up with the labels.  

Nick, I appreciate your clarification.  My approach on this issue is from my background as a lawyer who used to work at a 100+ attorney law firm, where I worked in the products liability department.  I understand to view that putting a label on everything makes it seem like everything and nothing is risky.  However, there are different theories of liability when using a product that harms the consumer.  Much of the labeling you see is done voluntarily by the manufacturers.  They learned a long time ago that it is FAR less expensive to slap a label on everything than to defend claims brought by people who used a product improperly, modified it, or who were injured by a product that is potentially more dangerous than the ordinary consumer would contemplate.  Think of Pintos that explode when rear ended or a chain saw designed with a hole by the handle where your thumb go easily slip into and get chewed off.  These are real examples of products that were redesigned after being sold. 

Labels are sometimes mandated where the product has other latent issues that a consumer might not be aware of.  These are products where the manufacturer didn't know or didn't care that there may have been ingredients or chemicals that could potentially harm a consumer.  Think of lead paint.  Lot of issues there.  That issue was not corrected at the manufacturers own suggestion, but because of lawsuits and legislation to correct it.  Same with BPAs, etc.  It has consistently been the position of industry that it is cheaper to have people get injured or sick and deal with the consequences of a defective product than to redesign the product to prevent those injuries.  I lost my stomach for product liabilities defensive after drafting and winning a motion for summary judgment against a plaintiff who used some prescribed meds, got horrible side effects but filed her claim after the one year statute of limitations had expired.  Like I said, labels can seem silly but they are the much lesser evil.  

This video is apropos to some comments -

That warning is on everything. It is on the gas pumps in CA, in case you were going to drink the gas..

Ryan K wrote:

That warning is on everything. It is on the gas pumps in CA, in case you were going to drink the gas.  

Obviously they are just trying to prevent gas fights.....very serious problem in the model community.

Prop 65 was a well-intentioned but badly crafted ballot initiative (like so many of them) that attempted to mandate labeling of dangerous chemicals but ended up creating a situation where product manufacturers and landlords just labeled EVERYTHING to avoid litigation. So now a barrel of dioxin carries the same label as a household cleaner. The answer isn't to NOT label things, it's to label the right things. 

I feel like folks want there to be a system where the government tells you what things are dangerous, and what things are not dangerous. This is impossible. Biochemistry doesn't work that way, Paracelsus covered that a long long time ago. Lots of things are dangerous if you get enough of them.

The government can't know what your other exposures are. If you have an acceptable amount of exposure from a dozen sources, you might now have an unacceptable amount of exposure in your life. Unless we want the government to watch everything we buy, it can't tell us when we are overexposed. That decision is on us.

What it can tell us is exactly what prop 65 labeling is telling us. There is some amount of a substance that increases your disease risk at some dose. You (and the government) don't know exactly how much of that substance is in the product, you (and the government) don't know exactly how much risk it causes, you (and the government) probably aren't keeping track of your other exposure.

This is one of those "you can't handle the truth," moments. The labels are accurate in what they say. But we can't even finish reading the label before trying to make it instead say "this is a bad thing." Our monkey brains just want to never be exposed to "bad" things. But those brains aren't attentive enough to keep track of different bad things and our daily exposure in a way that's useful for modern life. So we'll just assume everything is fine. Cause our monkey brains only have "good" and "bad" settings, so we lie to ourselves and round "slightly bad" down to "good." 

You know what can keep track of a lot of small numbers? That phone in your hand. Where's the invasively-share-all-my-info-Millennial app that keeps track of your Prop 65 exposures for you?

JonasMR wrote:

I feel like folks want there to be a system where the government tells you what things are dangerous, and what things are not dangerous. This is impossible. 

You may be missing the point. People want manufacturers to DISCLOSE when their products contain dangerous substances so we can make informed decisions about what to buy. We don't want govt. to do it. But government has the power to mandate disclosure and nobody else does. Hence laws. Historic examples of this being successful would be, for example, that we no longer use asbestos in our insulation, that our gasoline and paint no longer contains lead.

Replying to the below comment about "unleaded" gas containing small amounts of lead: It's shorthand. Let's be specific, then. Aviation gasoline contains about 2 to 4 Grams (2,000-4,000 milligrams) of lead per gallon. Automotive fuel is allowed to contain 50 milligrams lead, max, per gallon. Basically, slightly more than 1% the level of leaded gas. And low enough not to create a significant health hazard according to actual science. Good enough for me.

BTW, when is someone going to fix it so Mountain Project allows more than 2 posts in a thread per day? 

Andrew Rice wrote:

You may be missing the point. People want manufacturers to DISCLOSE when their products contain dangerous substances so we can make informed decisions about what to buy. We don't want govt. to do it. But government has the power to mandate disclosure and nobody else does. Hence laws. Historic examples of this being successful would be, for example, that we no longer use asbestos in our insulation, that our gasoline and paint no longer contains lead.

Exactly.  People assume the label is always at the government's behest as the result of a law or statute.  Much of the time it is done voluntarily by the manufacturer to avoid getting sued.  Personally, I don't see a problem with this.  If you want to buy a house, the seller has got to disclose things so you know what you're dealing with.  Why shouldn't manufacturers do the same?  

Californians don't believe that voluntary labelling, like the No GMO labels, work. Instead brilliant law makers will drag society into the next level of humanity or some shit. Best part is no bad law will ever be repealed but instead replaced with something more onerous as surely the problem is the first attempt wasn't far-reaching enough.

I got to love the lawyer's take, assuming that any of us read that shit when it's absolutely useless information. 

What if we buy products based on whether the labels are useful or not? I think the granola I just bought has like a dozen of those labels, none of which are mandated.

#CALEXIT

Andrew Rice wrote:

You may be missing the point. People want manufacturers to DISCLOSE when their products contain dangerous substances so we can make informed decisions about what to buy. We don't want govt. to do it. But government has the power to mandate disclosure and nobody else does. Hence laws. Historic examples of this being successful would be, for example, that we no longer use asbestos in our insulation, that our gasoline and paint no longer contains lead.

You sure gasoline no longer contains lead? Isn't the fact that you were comfortable using a shorthand that suggest there is NO lead in modern gasoline a problem that a reminder label could fix? 

Edit to reply to above: The point isn't who is doing the disclosing. The point is that reality doesn't have "dangerous substances" and "non-dangerous substances." It has dangerous and non-dangerous doses. But glad you're now on board with "unsafe" levels of a chemical in consumer goods, and hopefully enjoyed learning more about those levels!

Trad Man wrote:

Californians don't believe that voluntary labelling, like the No GMO labels, work.

When it reaches the point where a manufacturer proudly proclaims their Himalayan salt is non-GMO*, then it really doesn't work.

*: there are multiple non-biologic food items that carry the non-GMO label

"But I never smoked a day in my life" - most people when told it IS cancer.

the latest trend is to put gluten free on everything.. Pretty sure the Steak I am eating right now is gluten free ;) 

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

the latest trend is to put gluten free on everything.. Pretty sure the Steak I am eating right now is gluten free ;) 

Yeah, but that's marketing, not regulation.