Fair Warning

In November, 1986, California voters said that they wanted a “clear and reasonable” warning about anything they might come across on an average day that might cause cancer. The technical language in Proposition 65 called for a warning when whatever was involved--gasoline, a can of mushroom soup, a bottle of soda or a lipstick--posed a “significant risk” of being carcinogenic or of causing genetic injury.

The first deadline for complying with one of the more difficult tasks required by the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act is just two weeks away: What to tell shoppers, and how to tell them, when they start filling carts with products that they have been using for years. The cans and boxes and what is inside them will not have changed since the last shopping day. What is outside may be different, though, because the shopper must be warned about chemicals inside the familiar cans and cartons that might cause cancer in some dosage.

“Significant risk” is not defined in the act, so even if a grocer knows what is inside a can of soup he probably could not quantify the risk that a shopper would take in eating it. Still, the act is law, and the shopper must be put on notice.

Grocers, the state Health and Welfare Agency and drafters of the act have been trying for more than a year to work their way through the problems of definition and clarity--problems that, by the way, led us to oppose Proposition 65 despite its worthwhile goal.

There are problems with going too far in either direction. The state could require the posting of every can and carton with a trace of toxic substance in it--which might well mean all of them. That would rob the act of meaning because shoppers have to buy something to put on the table even if it has a toxic label.

Grocers want to post notices giving a toll-free telephone number to shoppers who want to know what is inside a carton that they are about to purchase. That hardly seems to meet the letter of the law, let alone the spirit of it.

As usual, there is plenty of room to move around between the two extremes. To begin with, the state must set some level of chemicals or elements that occur naturally, like arsenic, below which it can say that there is no real risk. That will eliminate warnings from a certain number of products. The state numbers may be challenged, but it can create a toxics arbitration system in which independent scientists would choose among competing claims.

The Grocery Manufacturers Assn. wants the state to rule that foods and cosmetics can be sold without warning labels if they meet federal safety standards. That is a sensible way to begin, particularly with such substances as food additives that have been declared safe after scientific tests.

Substances that leach into foods from the soil or that are sprayed on as pesticides will be more difficult because many will never have been tested. In such cases grocery producers either must certify that their products need no warning labels or must label them as potentially hazardous.

For the average supermarket product this will obviously be the area in which compliance with Proposition 65 will be the most difficult. The state could make the job a bit easier by giving grocery manufacturers until November to demonstrate that they have begun the scientific research that is necessary to determine which containers will need warning labels and which will not. November, after all, is when the other requirements of the toxics act will take effect.

As to compliance on other issues, the state must be guided by what the law says. Californians voted to be informed clearly about the risks that are inherent in modern products, probably in hopes that industry would work more aggressively to reduce the risks and get the warning labels off their products. The state’s best hope of making the law work is by avoiding extremes and doing all that it can do at the same time to avoid bad science.