Warning Labels

A supremely unhelpful sign. Photo by Patrick Pelletier via Wikipedia.

This article in the Washington Post says that the state of Texas, following the lead of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, will require food to carry a warning label if it contains one of 44 common dyes or additives. Because Texas is a big state, it's expected that manufacturers and other states will fall in line. I have thoughts.

Although I reflexively oppose everything the current administration does, this doesn't necessarily seem a bad thing. Even if the 44 ingredients haven't been proven harmful, what's wrong with giving consumers more information about what they eat? 

I can tell you how it's going to go because I've lived a version of it.

In 1986, voters in my state of California passed Proposition 65, which mandated that consumer products get warning labels if they contain substances that might cause cancer or birth defects.

You know which substances might cause cancer or birth defects? Almost ALL of them, if you eat, breathe, or absorb enough of them. 

The result of this well-meaning law is that nearly every commercial establishment in the state, including Disneyland, has a sign by the entrance warning that something inside can kill you. Alcoholic beverages get the tag. Gasoline pumps get the tag. Pillows and mattresses get the tag.  

The result, of course, is that the warning labels deliver zero information to help consumers assess their actual risk and are ignored by everyone.

I predict a similar expensive, litigious, but fundamentally futile experience in Texas. It must gall at least a few Texans to be following California's example 40 years later.

(Parenthetically, I remember when the right wing decried Michelle Obama's campaign to encourage healthier eating as nanny-state Communism. Nice to see them come around to her point of view. I'm sure their apologies to Ms. Obama are forthcoming.)