[csee]

Do you have any evidence for this statement?

I have changed my behavior in response to health info on labels, so this is anecdotal evidence against your assertion.

PR campaigns have been known to work, e.g. alcohol in Russia in the 90s.

[chrisseaton]

> Do you have any evidence for this statement?

The fact that every coffee shop in California is still open, despite people being warned for years that they sell products that cause cancer. The vast majority of people clearly do not care about the warning.

And what do you think is the benefit of putting unsupported warnings on things? Do you think it's actively beneficial? Do you think it's harmless? If it's beneficial or harmless we might as well go ahead and put a warning label on absolutely everything regardless. Then how do we react to this linked article? We'd ignore it.

If you're the one who wants warning labels on things that don't need warning about then you justify that position!

[ziddoap]

It's not clear to me if you're arguing just about warnings on coffee or if you're arguing that all warning labels are useless.

>The fact that every coffee shop in California is still open, despite people being warned for years that they sell products that cause cancer. The vast majority of people clearly do not care about the warning.

Or they care, but have balanced the risks vs. their enjoyment of coffee. But they may see a warning on, for example, olive oil which contains lead, and decide to buy another product.

>putting unsupported warnings on things?

What do you mean by unsupported here? As in, not supported by science? Or by the people? Because I'm pretty sure it's well supported by science that certain products are carcinogenic and that consuming them, unsurprisingly, isn't very good. We can argue about what thresholds constitute a tangible risk, for sure, but either way the fact that some things cause cancer is surely considered "supported".

>that don't need warning about

Same question -- just referring to coffee or all labels on everything? I agree with this if you're just referring to coffee, but there are certainly labels that I do pay attention to and consider a warning useful.

I think there's a happy middle-ground here. If my favorite juice has lead, I want to know. If my favorite coffee shop has a 1 in 10,000,000 of causing cancer, I probably don't need the warning each day.

[zardo]

The problem I see with these labels is they lack specificity. A sticker on the visor in a new car says this vehicle contains chemicals that cause cancer and /or birth defects. I know the paint does, as do all the fluids.

What about the steering wheel and the arm rests?

My pen doesn't have a warning, is that because the manufacturer chooses to consider exposure through skin contact only, but chewing on it is actually a sizeable risk?

[LorenPechtel]

The problem isn't labels in general. It's that Prop 65 went way too far, it was a case of the boy crying wolf for every rodent walking around.

[csee]

I agreed with that, I was talking about labels in the abstract but they can definitely be put to bad use.