[xpe]

Product warning labels are indeed subject to all manners of nonscientific meddling, often with a barely disguised goal of protecting a powerful industry. History is not usually kind when evaluating these kinds of compromises made to appease powerful corporations.

And now, a short conversation between two people to illustrate the rhetoric in play:

Person 1: “Let the market handle that; it will innovate and adapt to customer needs!”

Person 2: “Except the top three players in that industry are quite profitably killing people.”

Person 1: “But how can the industry recover if we act too drastically?”

Person 2: I will quote what you said just above: <<Let the market handle that; it will innovate and adapt to customer needs!>> You were just saying that the market is adaptable! It seems like you are conflating the idea of protecting bad actors with the idea of setting the conditions for a healthy market. A healthy market does not kill its consumers.