3 ms·

This feels like it’s going the way of prop 65. To be on the safe side, everything gets the label, thus making the label pointless -it no longer helps different

by mc32 2y ago

This feels like it’s going the way of prop 65. To be on the safe side, everything gets the label, thus making the label pointless -it no longer helps differentiating things.

PaulHoule 2y ago
No, I see canned peaches with a P65 label and I see canned peaches without them. Same for fried snacks.
- mc32 2y ago
  Are those labels based on periodic random testing or based on risk avoidance? What proportion of these labels are false positives?
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Main threats I see are lead and cadmium in some foods from China, also high levels of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide in some foods.
    - LorenPechtel 2y ago
      We dumped lead all over the environment. You can basically assume anything grown has lead, the only question being how much. Likewise, mercury. In some areas there's a lot of arsenic. Most everything high on the periodic table is nasty. The few that we willingly associate with are because they are non-reactive enough to not actually pose a threat even if in theory they're harmful. (Consider the use of barium to image the digestive system. They use a form of it that's sufficiently insoluble that you don't get poisoned.)
MaximilianEmel 2y ago
That's how it already apparently is, and this is supposed to mitigate that.
ergocoder 2y ago
There is no penalty for over-labeling. Maybe some lost sales. Not a big deal. But there is a huge potentially downside for under-labeling e.g. people dying. There is an ethic issue here as well even if we ignore money. Also, the production pipeline is not 100% perfect. They produce millions of items each year. Even with 0.001% defect / cross-contamination, it could be troublesome. More importantly, the exec who decides to under-label might end up in jail if people die from their decision. Basic game theory really. If I'm an exec who is paid millions of dollars a year, I wouldn't risk it. Big deal if I earn a little less. Unless FDA tips the scale and provides some guarantees, this warning means nothing. If FDA really wants to punish for over-labeling, I'd start adding a really small allergen, so the warning becomes accurate lol.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  The basic problem here is that there are three categories of people: Those for whom X is fine/those for whom X is undesirable/those for whom X is deadly. We used to have three categories: contains/may contain/doesn't contain. Draw this as a 3x3 matrix. Those for whom X is fine don't care, they can eat any row. Those for whom X is undesirable generally do not care about cross contamination. The risk * loss is low enough not to be important. Those for whom X is deadly will not eat from the may contain category. The FDA appears to have declared war on the may contain category. Who wins? Nobody. Who loses? Those for whom X is undesirable who are now no longer able to know that the item is probably fine. I think they are operating under the fantasy that removing may contains means companies will ensure it isn't there, but that's an expensive endeavor that the marketplace simply doesn't call for.
treflop 2y ago
I don’t think prop 65 is super useful but I don’t get why people think it’s meaningless. I’ve definitely seen prop 65 on things that made me pause because nothing about the object (like a food bowl) should give me cancer and often I won’t buy it.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  That's kind of the point. There very well could be nothing wrong with that food bowl and someone slapped a label on it for no reason at all. Literally without meaning.
  - treflop 2y ago
    Except because of prop 65, I learned that some bowls actually do have some lead in them due to their glazes or coloring… And that the label was probably correct.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      You say probably and I guess that guesswork is what it comes down to. I think that p65 warnings are only slightly better than random in terms of identifying risky objects. I would guess they are only applied half the time if the item contains a known chemical, and half the time it contains a chemical, it has no label. Also, the threshold is so poor, you have no idea if an item is actually dangerous even if it is correctly used. Last, it is pretty unclear what they mean. When I walk into a p65 building, does that mean I am taking a real risk, or that I shouldn't eat the building because the paint contains lead. Same for the bowl.
      - treflop 2y ago
        But isn’t that the case with everything? You can’t take anything at face value and never in history have you ever been able to. When you read a news article, you have to know about the publication before you can contextualize the article. When you read a restaurant movie review or rating, you have to know what the general average is and trends of the source before you can interpret the rating. When you read about some food being healthy, you need to know if they mean nutrient wise or calorie wise to contextualize “healthy.” Just reading hackernews, you know how people on here swing about different issues so when an article comes up on one of those issues, you know how the comment section may perceive the issue. To me, prop 65 is just another thing that provides a signal if you want to contextualize it.
AdamN 2y ago
That's sort of the boogeyman way it's been interpreted but the other way of looking at it is that those items really are carcinogenic. And it's not the 'give a rate 100x the amount anybody could possibly digest and of course they get cancer' trope either - these really are substances that have cancer risk and they're very common in modern life.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  But they're not all over the place like you would think from the 65 nonsense. The vast majority of cases are trace levels of low risk materials. Never mind that in most cases you're facing a lot more risk from natural materials.

by mc32 2y ago

This feels like it’s going the way of prop 65. To be on the safe side, everything gets the label, thus making the label pointless -it no longer helps differentiating things.

PaulHoule 2y ago

No, I see canned peaches with a P65 label and I see canned peaches without them. Same for fried snacks.

mc32 2y ago
Are those labels based on periodic random testing or based on risk avoidance? What proportion of these labels are false positives?
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Main threats I see are lead and cadmium in some foods from China, also high levels of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide in some foods.
  - LorenPechtel 2y ago
    We dumped lead all over the environment. You can basically assume anything grown has lead, the only question being how much. Likewise, mercury. In some areas there's a lot of arsenic. Most everything high on the periodic table is nasty. The few that we willingly associate with are because they are non-reactive enough to not actually pose a threat even if in theory they're harmful. (Consider the use of barium to image the digestive system. They use a form of it that's sufficiently insoluble that you don't get poisoned.)

MaximilianEmel 2y ago

That's how it already apparently is, and this is supposed to mitigate that.

ergocoder 2y ago

There is no penalty for over-labeling. Maybe some lost sales. Not a big deal. But there is a huge potentially downside for under-labeling e.g. people dying. There is an ethic issue here as well even if we ignore money. Also, the production pipeline is not 100% perfect. They produce millions of items each year. Even with 0.001% defect / cross-contamination, it could be troublesome. More importantly, the exec who decides to under-label might end up in jail if people die from their decision. Basic game theory really. If I'm an exec who is paid millions of dollars a year, I wouldn't risk it. Big deal if I earn a little less. Unless FDA tips the scale and provides some guarantees, this warning means nothing. If FDA really wants to punish for over-labeling, I'd start adding a really small allergen, so the warning becomes accurate lol.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
LorenPechtel 2y ago
The basic problem here is that there are three categories of people: Those for whom X is fine/those for whom X is undesirable/those for whom X is deadly. We used to have three categories: contains/may contain/doesn't contain. Draw this as a 3x3 matrix. Those for whom X is fine don't care, they can eat any row. Those for whom X is undesirable generally do not care about cross contamination. The risk * loss is low enough not to be important. Those for whom X is deadly will not eat from the may contain category. The FDA appears to have declared war on the may contain category. Who wins? Nobody. Who loses? Those for whom X is undesirable who are now no longer able to know that the item is probably fine. I think they are operating under the fantasy that removing may contains means companies will ensure it isn't there, but that's an expensive endeavor that the marketplace simply doesn't call for.

treflop 2y ago

I don’t think prop 65 is super useful but I don’t get why people think it’s meaningless. I’ve definitely seen prop 65 on things that made me pause because nothing about the object (like a food bowl) should give me cancer and often I won’t buy it.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
That's kind of the point. There very well could be nothing wrong with that food bowl and someone slapped a label on it for no reason at all. Literally without meaning.
- treflop 2y ago
  Except because of prop 65, I learned that some bowls actually do have some lead in them due to their glazes or coloring… And that the label was probably correct.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    You say probably and I guess that guesswork is what it comes down to. I think that p65 warnings are only slightly better than random in terms of identifying risky objects. I would guess they are only applied half the time if the item contains a known chemical, and half the time it contains a chemical, it has no label. Also, the threshold is so poor, you have no idea if an item is actually dangerous even if it is correctly used. Last, it is pretty unclear what they mean. When I walk into a p65 building, does that mean I am taking a real risk, or that I shouldn't eat the building because the paint contains lead. Same for the bowl.
    - treflop 2y ago
      But isn’t that the case with everything? You can’t take anything at face value and never in history have you ever been able to. When you read a news article, you have to know about the publication before you can contextualize the article. When you read a restaurant movie review or rating, you have to know what the general average is and trends of the source before you can interpret the rating. When you read about some food being healthy, you need to know if they mean nutrient wise or calorie wise to contextualize “healthy.” Just reading hackernews, you know how people on here swing about different issues so when an article comes up on one of those issues, you know how the comment section may perceive the issue. To me, prop 65 is just another thing that provides a signal if you want to contextualize it.

AdamN 2y ago

That's sort of the boogeyman way it's been interpreted but the other way of looking at it is that those items really are carcinogenic. And it's not the 'give a rate 100x the amount anybody could possibly digest and of course they get cancer' trope either - these really are substances that have cancer risk and they're very common in modern life.

LorenPechtel 2y ago
But they're not all over the place like you would think from the 65 nonsense. The vast majority of cases are trace levels of low risk materials. Never mind that in most cases you're facing a lot more risk from natural materials.