{"id":22094,"date":"2025-02-12T19:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T20:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22094"},"modified":"2025-02-12T21:23:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T21:23:01","slug":"californias-scary-product-warning-labels-might-be-working-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22094","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Scary Product Warning Labels Might Be Working, Study Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Products must state if they contain chemicals tied to cancer or other risks. As a result, manufacturers have pulled back from using the chemicals, researchers found.<\/p>\n

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The warnings, on thousands of products sold in California, are stark.<\/p>\n

\u201cUse of the following products,\u201d one label says, \u201cwill expose you to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, new research shows the warnings may be working.<\/p>\n

A study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology<\/a> found that California\u2019s right-to-know law, which requires companies to warn people about harmful chemicals in their products, has swayed many companies to stop using those chemicals altogether.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, companies don\u2019t want to sell a product that carries a big cancer warning label, said Dr. Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental-health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and an author of the study. Combine that with the threat of lawsuits and reputational costs, as well as companies just wanting to do the right thing for health, and \u201cit becomes a great motivator for change,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

California maintains a list of about 900 chemicals known to cause cancer and other health effects. Under the 1986 right-to-know law, also known as Prop 65<\/a>, products that could expose people to harmful amounts of those chemicals must carry warning labels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Critics had long mocked the measure, saying the warnings were so ubiquitous \u2014 affixed to cookware, faux leather jackets, even baked goods \u2014 that they had become largely meaningless in the eyes of shoppers. But the latest study found that companies, more than consumers, may be most influenced by the warnings.<\/p>\n

To assess the law\u2019s effect, researchers carried out interviews at 32 global manufacturers and retailers that sell clothing, personal-care, cleaning, and a range of home products. Almost 80 percent of interviewees said Prop 65 had prompted them to reformulate their products.<\/p>\n

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Products must state if they contain chemicals tied to cancer or other risks. As a result, manufacturers have pulled back from using the chemicals, researchers found.The warnings, on thousands of products sold in California, are stark.\u201cUse of the following products,\u201d one label says, \u201cwill expose you to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.\u201dNow, new research shows the warnings may be working.A study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that California\u2019s right-to-know law, which requires companies to warn people about harmful chemicals in their products, has swayed many companies to stop using those chemicals altogether.As it turns out, companies don\u2019t want to sell a product that carries a big cancer warning label, said Dr. Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental-health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and an author of the study. Combine that with the threat of lawsuits and reputational costs, as well as companies just wanting to do the right thing for health, and \u201cit becomes a great motivator for change,\u201d she said.California maintains a list of about 900 chemicals known to cause cancer and other health effects. Under the 1986 right-to-know law, also known as Prop 65, products that could expose people to harmful amounts of those chemicals must carry warning labels.Critics had long mocked the measure, saying the warnings were so ubiquitous \u2014 affixed to cookware, faux leather jackets, even baked goods \u2014 that they had become largely meaningless in the eyes of shoppers. But the latest study found that companies, more than consumers, may be most influenced by the warnings.To assess the law\u2019s effect, researchers carried out interviews at 32 global manufacturers and retailers that sell clothing, personal-care, cleaning, and a range of home products. Almost 80 percent of interviewees said Prop 65 had prompted them to reformulate their products.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22096,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22097,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22094\/revisions\/22097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}