back to article Super Cali goes ballistic, Starbucks is on notice: Expensive milky coffee is something quite cancerous

A California judge has ordered major coffee chains to put a cancer warning on their beverages. Los Angeles Superior Court judge Elihu Berle ruled this week that, under state law, Starbucks and other coffee chains will have to put up a notice that compounds present in coffee can cause cancer. The judge said that, under …

  1. Alan J. Wylie

    They'll be coming for our toast and chips next!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Partial Burn

      Any plant matter, when partially burnt, evolves a whole slew of not very nice chemicals, the consumption of which is not advised in high doses. Not that you get a high dose from normal foodstuffs, but as they great Iain M Banks said, these things accrue.

      From this point of view, smoking pot ain't a whole lot better than smoking tobacco. Both involve inhaling the fumes of partially burnt plant matter, and that's a bad idea. Plus some carbon monoxide too, which isn't great for the health either.

      Wait 50 years and there'll be a whole load of cancer ridden pot heads suing the cannabis companies in California, elsewhere.

      I can't imagine anyone will be suing Starbucks - I wasn't aware that what they purvey counted as coffee...

      1. elgarak1

        Re: Partial Burn

        Cough,cough... There is a significant difference between tobacco and hemp (pot): Tobacco preferentially absorbs and accumulates a lot of bad substances. Some of those appear in the environment as fallout from in-air nuclear test explosions during the '50s and '60s. In short, modern tobacco has become an alpha-emitter, and smoking tobacco exposes the inside of your lungs to quite a high dosage of alpha-radiation. As far as I am aware, hemp is not particularly radioactive.

        Note: One of the big important rules of radiation safety: Never ever let pieces of alpha-emitters enter your body! It's bad, m'kay? OUTSIDE your body they're fine, mostly harmless. But inside, oh boy....

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Partial Burn

          Lighter flints are radioactive too. I've no idea whether any of their dust makes it through a cigarette, but it sounds like a bad idea all round.

        2. Eddy Ito

          Re: Partial Burn

          Why would anyone do anything with hemp other than make ropes and such? It's not like it has THC like pot (marijuana). The fact that growing hemp is illegal because it looks too much like marijuana to uneducated law enforcement is why it's illegal to grow in the US. Fortunately if the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 is passed that won't be an issue any longer and LEOs will actually have to think before they shoot people.

          1. 404

            Re: Partial Burn

            "LEOs will actually have to think before they shoot people"

            Unlikely... Now more farmer families will get to sue for wrongful death.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Partial Burn

        Clearly the judge is elitist scum. He's not thinking about the beggars and homeless that rely on discarded coffee cups to collect coins.

        Beggars aren't made of hats and violin cases you know.

        Unbelievable. All this will do is increase the wealth gap.

  2. stephanh

    the judge who cried wolf?

    "I read somewhere that those cancer warnings on coffee are bogus. So cigarettes are probably fine too."

    1. Brian Miller

      Re: the judge who cried wolf?

      Acrylamide is also in anything fried, baked or roasted. So yes, toast, steak, sausage and bacon, and well just about everything cooked. So either eat your food raw or boiled, and you might be all right.

      Maybe.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: the judge who cried wolf?

        this site has a top 10 list of foods high in acrylamide:

        https://www.healwithfood.org/list/foods-high-in-acrylamide.php

        However, _I_ think it was the DHMO that was causing the cancer, and NOT the acrylamide nor the coffee itself!!!

        You KNOW that DHMO is in EVERYTHING, right? It's often found in toxic waste, it's dumped into the air by car exhaust and nuclear power plants, and EVERY CANCER PATIENT has DHMO in their system!

        If you don't believe me, check out dhmo.org !!! And get out the word, to everyone, because Henny Penny and Chicken Little think the SKY is FALLING!!!

        </sarcasm>

      2. Grikath
        Pint

        Re: the judge who cried wolf?

        "So either eat your food raw or boiled, "

        Wasn't "Boiled to Death" the standard mode of english ...food massacre.. ? As opposed to the scottish "fry it 'till it stops screaming".. ?

        Which makes me wonder.. In all those decades I've mastered english, I've never really heard any solid stereotype about the Welsh and Food (other than the sheep thing). Inquiring minds at Beer 'o Clock and a bit...

        1. BebopWeBop
          Devil

          Re: the judge who cried wolf?

          Well on my frequent trips to Hong Kong I noticed that the chine4ses equivalent in the street markets was 'fry it until it stops wriggling'

      3. elgarak1

        Re: the judge who cried wolf?

        I can't help but think that the trial leading to this decision had the wrong export witnesses. There has been a paper some years ago (don't bother me to find it for you) that investigated the stuff. Yes, frying, baking and roasting produces acrylamide. But, in addition, in particular on meat, it also produces enzymes that during digestion prevent the acrylamides to be digested and absorbed by the human body.

        In fact, given the recent rules of the EU to not fry fries over a certain temperature: This might reduce the production of acrlamides, but it also reduces the production of said enzymes.

        It's entirely unclear whether any of this has an effect on the prevalence of cancer. But it's not enough to just look at the concentration of acrylamides.

      4. Eddy Ito

        Re: the judge who cried wolf?

        It's not the acrylamide, it's what it reacts with assuming we consume 10,000 times the amount found in a cup of coffee every single day. Of course the reactive thing being human tissue means that we'll need to label every person with a Prop 65 warning.

        1. Phil W

          Re: the judge who cried wolf?

          "we'll need to label every person with a Prop 65 warning"

          Yup, definitely need warning labels on people. They can be extremely bad for your health if consumed or improperly used.

          1. BebopWeBop
            Angel

            Re: the judge who cried wolf?

            Does this make future Solyent Green development tricky?

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: the judge who cried wolf?

        Sssshhh!

        The Daily Mail might be listening.

        1. Swarthy
          WTF?

          Re: the judge who cried wolf?

          Next Question: How does one put a Prop 65 Warning on air? 'Cause one of the most corrosive, flammable, carcinogenic, and damaging chemicals known to humanity is Oxygen.

          I guess, in LA they could just carve it into the smog... but LA should have an exemption, as there isn't much O2 in the air.

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    They should put...

    A cancer warning on the state of California...

    1. Chris Miller

      Re: They should put...

      There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

      Edward Abbey (1927-89)

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: They should put...

      Well, yes, that does appear to be the law now.

      They should also put warnings on people. Anytime I can smell your breath, it's probably bcause of some volatile organic chemical and in sufficient concentrations that probably isn't good for me.

      Of course, a sane law would say the warning is only required when the increase in risk at a location is large enough to cause a reasonable person to start taking precautions. But we aren't going to get *that* law until the stupidity of *this* one is made clear. So start making those T-shirts...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They should put...

        Of course, a sane law would say .......

        Are there any sane politicians in California for a start? If there are then why don't sane people vote for them or are everyone suffering from an advanced case of the stupids?

        1. Diogenes

          Re: They should put...

          Its was a rederendum. Lawmakers were obliged to implement it.

          Every time somebody bangs on about direct democracy i point at California in general & SFO in particular

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: They should put...

            "Its was a rederendum. Lawmakers were obliged to implement it."

            Being neither a Californian nor even a US resident, my cursory search for details on this referendum failed. Has anyone got a link showing the turnout and voting numbers? My instinctive feeling is that this is the sort referendum commonly called a "squeaky wheel vote", ie most people either never hear of it or care enough to bother other than those who campaigned for it. The inevitable result being low turnouts but primarily those who vote Yes.

            1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

              Re: They should put...

              Has anyone got a link showing the turnout and voting numbers?

              Prop 65 is unlikely to have significantly affected turnout. I was on the November 1986 ballot, which also featured a race for the state governor.

              I haven't found statistics specifically for Prop 65, but some 7.4M people voted for governor. That's a bit low by California standards but not tremendously so.

              I'd guess that the vast majority of those people did not abstain from the Prop 65 question, since it was right there on the ballot and once you've gone to the trouble of voting in the first place, why not check something? Educated voters are likely to have an opinion; uneducated ones aren't likely to care whether their vote is productive.

              Wikipedia further claims that it passed with a 63% yes vote, though it doesn't provide a source for that statistic.

              So if, say, only 10% of people who voted in the gubernatorial race abstained from the Prop 65 question, that's around 4M who voted in favor.

            2. Eddy Ito

              Re: They should put...

              https://repository.uchastings.edu/ca_ballot_props/970/

              The vote went 4,400,471 for and 2,632,617 against. According to PPIC (PDF warning) the turnout was about 45%.

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: They should put...

                "The vote went 4,400,471 for and 2,632,617 against. According to PPIC (PDF warning) the turnout was about 45%."

                I'm not sure if it's that what's scary or if it's the unintended consequences that have resulted from it.

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: They should put...

          Are there any sane politicians in California for a start? If there are then why don't sane people vote for them or are everyone suffering from an advanced case of the stupids?

          However interesting that question might be, it's irrelevant in this case. Proposition 65, like all "propositions" in California law, was a ballot initiative passed by direct vote of the electorate.It wasn't passed by politicians. (Of course some politicians may have voted for it as citizens, but it was not the work of the legislature.)

          As is generally the case with "direct democracy" in the US, Prop 65 is largely useless. It's difficult to find a product that does not have a Prop 65 "known to the state of California" warning on it, so they're widely ignored.

          In states where they have an effect, ballot initiatives are generally employed by well-funded groups to mobilize the tyranny of the masses to pass some idiotic, counter-productive law. In other states, such as Michigan, they're just a waste of time and effort. (Michigan's constitution prevents ballot initiatives from overriding any law with a spending component, so when an initiative is passed that the legislature doesn't favor, it just writes an overriding bill and tacks some spending measure onto it.)

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: They should put...

        "But we aren't going to get *that* law until the stupidity of *this* one is made clear. So start making those T-shirts..."

        Maybe every coffee shop should put up huge, fluorescent coloured banner warning...

        DANGER! CALIFORNIA LAW SAYS COFFEE CAUSES CANCER!!!

        That should demonstrate how much notice real people will take of the warning, make the law look more of an Ass than usual and be entirely legal.

        I wonder what materials were used in the construction, decoration and furnishing of the court? It's quite likely that some of the materials are emitting at least some level of carcinogens. Should the courthouse have warning signs placed at the entrances?

    3. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: They should put...

      MH suggested, "They should put... A cancer warning on the state of California..."

      Well yes. It is rather sunny there (except San Francisco), and it is well established that the UV rays in sunshine can and actually do cause cancer.

      Perhaps the coffee chains could have fun with this; place a Sunshine Cancer warning sign outside.

      Sometimes it's easier to push the pendulum a bit further in the direction it's already headed. Judo applied to the law.

    4. 2Nick3

      Re: They should put...

      "A cancer warning on the state of California..."

      When you get off a plane in California you are greeted by a sign on the jetway that indicates something along the lines of, "The State of California says that there are cancer causing things beyond this point."

      Makes me laugh every time I see it.

  5. Kaltern
    Pint

    Humans should drink nothing but natural spring water, boiled and filtered through natural plant fibres for minimal contamination of anything, and only eat carrots and cabbage.

    Enjoy your new, healthier lifestyle.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "...natural spring water, boiled..."

      There's a legend in our family that one of the early homesteaders had read that open-wound injuries should be cleaned with "boiled water". Apparently the book wasn't clear about the distinction between "boiled" and "boiling".

    2. 404

      Cabbage farts... no thank you sir!

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "natural spring water, boiled and filtered through natural plant fibres"

      I can think of quite a lot of natural plant fibres I'd rather not use as a filter material.

  6. Mark 85

    And here, I thought previous to this that everything sold in California causes cancer according to them. They really do embody the nanny state there.

  7. martinusher Silver badge

    Not a big deal

    Practically every business has a Proposition 65 notice posted by the entrance. They get put up because even the stuff used to clean the place is potentially cancerous. Nobody takes any notice, they're just background noise. (Its also a handy CYA just in case someone decides to sue because such-and-such gave them cancer......instead of spending big bucks trying to prove a negatice you just point to the sign and say "we told you so".)

    1. far2much4me

      Re: Not a big deal

      Unfortunately, the way Proposition 65 was written (and passed by the stupid voters), was any detectable level of carcinogen requires the warning. As tests have gotten better (as in detecting ppb), it seems practically everything has carcinogens. There was a lawsuit about 20 years ago to require the "organic" markets to post signs because ripe fruit contains several detectable carcinogens. They lost because the judge had some common sense. This time they won. Because the judge is stupid and, you know, big business.

      1. Toe Knee

        Re: Not a big deal

        It would seem that the judge is just applying the law as it is written. It's not the judiciary's job to decide if a law is unfair or just plain stupid.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not a big deal

          Who was it that said the best way to get rid of a bad law is to rigorously enforce it?

          1. Mr Han

            Re: Not a big deal

            You just did.

  8. martinusher Silver badge

    Not a big deal

    Practically every business has a Proposition 65 notice posted by the entrance. They get put up because even the stuff used to clean the place is potentially cancerous. Nobody takes any notice, they're just background noise. (Its also a handy CYA just in case someone decides to sue because such-and-such gave them cancer......instead of spending big bucks trying to prove a negative you just point to the sign and say "we told you so".)

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Not a big deal

      And what if they turn around and use the "I'm Illiterate" argument a la the McDonald's coffee suit?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another "Super Cali" headline?

    I wish we could vote on the articles themselves, or at least the headlines. This meme is so old & tired it makes corpses look energetic & lively.

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

      I for one enjoy them.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

      The 3 Stooges would do their schtick any time there was a camera. It was always the same *kinds* of stuff. People still laugh at it, though the jokes were limited and repeated frequently. It became 'expected' and people laughed anyway.

      it's a comedy style. I like it. And I live in CALI-FORNICATE-YOU, and think the gummint here has COMPLETELY lost its collective mind. Well, if ALL of the sane people leave, it'll just get worse... and I really don't want to re-incorporate in another state. Still if it gets REALLY bad, Texas looks interesting. Maybe the gulf coast. Hurricanes can't be much worse than earthquakes an leftists trying to run my life!

      /me points out that when ALL of "the producers" and the small, startup businesses leave Cali-Fornicate-You, the only people left will be a handfull of overly wealthy tax PAYERS, and a WHOLE LOT of open hands begging for nanny-gummint to FEED and CLOTHE and HOUSE them [and give them freebie medical care, too, and extend their lives, so they can leech off of society for as long as possible and continue to vote for Demo-Rats]

      1. Not also known as SC
        Angel

        Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

        @BB

        "Texas looks interesting."

        You better be quick, apparently Texas is sinking!

        https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-oil-gas-drilling-blamed-sinkholes-threatening-swallow-texas-earthquakes-a8281281.html

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

          "Texas looks interesting."

          You better be quick, apparently Texas is sinking!

          Sure. And like most of the Southwest it's dangerously short on water, too. But that doesn't make it less interesting. Less appealing, perhaps, but not less interesting.

          Bacigalupi's The Water Knife is an entertaining look at just how interesting the Southwest as a whole might get. (Those who prefer nonfiction might want to try Cadillac Desert, Reisner's classic history of the region's water troubles, which Bacigalupi references heavily.)

    3. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

      @AC

      This meme is so old & tired it makes corpses look energetic & lively.

      TITSUP - Total Inability To Supply Unusual Puns

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

      "This meme is so old & tired it makes corpses look energetic & lively."

      Oh FFS, you'll be complaining about TITSUP next. Or campaigning to have the Paris icon removed.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

        @John Brown (no body)

        Oh FFS, you'll be complaining about TITSUP next.

        ...protestors outside Vulture Central with banners stating "TITSDOWN!"

    5. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Another "Super Cali" headline?

      It annoys you, so I'm all for it.

  10. JSIM

    Surely El Reg's headline for this story should have been something like:

    Company CEO Criticizes California City Court's Compelling Caution Covering Cancer Causing Coffee Consumption Consequently Creating Considerable Cafe Customer Carcinogen Concerns

  11. mark l 2 Silver badge

    Sounds like a Daily Fail headline, where nearly every week they have <insert product here> causes/prevents cancer.

    Sometimes they forget what they have previous ran and so one year for example eating brown bread prevents cancer then the year after it causes it.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Alert

      "Daily Fail headline, where nearly every week they have <insert product here> causes/prevents cancer."

      yeah, I go *yawn* every time.

      Cyclamates, ONLY tested along with Saccharine, was ALLEGED to cause cancer [since the patent ran out and ANYBODY could make it]. Saccharine tested by itself was ALSO alleged to cause cancer. Connection? And because there's no patent on it, there's no financial incentive to prove that Cyclamates are ok.

      Butter (in the 1960s through 1980s) was considered BAD for you, and "polyunsaturate" margarine was considered 'healthy'. Then someone actually managed to get the word out about TRANS-FATS. Not so healthy, right? I like LOTS of butter on EVERYTHING, by the way, but haven't tried 'deep fried butter' yet.

      Nobody believed that ulcers were caused by BACTERIA. Everybody said it was "stress" or "acid" or something NOT the truth. Then a brave Australian doctor decided to test his own theory, ON HIMSELF, after which he CURED himself with ANTI-BIOTICS.

      The anti-cholesterol fascists are STILL out there doling out unnecessary prescriptions for anti-cholesterol medication, EVEN THOUGH IT OFTEN RESULTS IN DIABETES [particularly in post-menopausal women], and [as far as I can tell] MAY LEAD TO ALTZHEIMER'S [keep in mind, the BRAIN is mostly fat, and cholesterol]. With few exceptions, MOST people don't need this, nor the cocktail of OTHER medications to manage the side effects that MIGHT BE CAUSED by the anti-cholesterol CRAP.

      Needless to say, can you REALLY BELIEVE half of what is being said about 'what causes cancer' or 'what food is good/bad for you' etc. etc. etc. ???

      And you can extend this to the ridiculous claims about egg shell thinning and DDT, the ONLY chemical known to kill things like BED BUGS [which are coming back, in a rather BAD way].

      So yeah, "nearly everything causes cancer". LIFE causes cancer. DHMO causes cancer.

      /me runs off, screaming, with my hands in the air

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Coat

        John Lykoudis, a general practitioner in Greece, treated people for peptic ulcer disease with antibiotics, beginning in 1958, long before it was commonly recognized that bacteria were a dominant cause for the disease.[38]

        Helicobacter pylori was identified in 1982 by two Australian scientists, Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall as a causative factor for ulcers.[39] In their original paper, Warren and Marshall contended that most gastric ulcers and gastritis were caused by colonization with this bacterium, not by stress or spicy food as had been assumed before.

        In 2005, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. Marshall and his long-time collaborator Dr. Warren "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.

    2. Dr Stephen Jones

      tbf, that’s all newspapers these days. Sometimes they fail to notice and will publish can’t contradictory cures/causes cancer stories on the same day.

  12. Chairman of the Bored

    Sigh

    Sister-in-law is a certified, left coast, card carrying Californicator. She absolutely will flip out about this.

    Maybe going nuts over every jot and tittle in the press is unhealthy? Whatever happened to eat, drink, and be merry?

    I told her that despite eating nothing and thinking only wholesome thoughts... She will eventually die anyways. And it will look really stupid when she's in the hospital dying from absolutely nothing. At least I will know what's going to take me out!

  13. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Facepalm

    The driving force?

    Lawyers, just lawyers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The driving force?

      Too many lawyers, and not enough grunts.

  14. tom dial Silver badge

    I believe California also is the center of the anti-vaccine galaxy. Perhaps there is a need for another proposition, as everyone there knows that the best way to decide a factual question is to vote on it.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Looking at the following site there appear to be a number of states with childhood vaccination rates lower than CA. CA already has SB277 removing personal and religious belief exemptions - with reports that drug companies donated millions to CA lawmakers before the vaccine debate. Perhaps the publicity around SB277 caused some parents to begin weighing the risks of vaccination against the benefits.

      www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/immunizations/Pages/Across-America.aspx

      1. 404

        Every time there is an earthquake, flood, mudslide, volcano*, in California -> Californians leave the state in droves, polluting other states with their whackjob ideas/laws. Seen it first-hand in Arizona, which is why I moved further east, but not as far as the coast ;)

        *'Volcano' - lost two hours of my life last night to a bad Tommy Lee Jones movie about volcanii in LA.

  15. -tim
    IT Angle

    Wonderful California

    They require a specific sign designs for restrooms that seems like it was intend to troll the visually impaired. Nearly every sign in the world has a triangle dress shape for women and not a triangle for men. California goes and does the reverse. Apparently the signs were designed by an IT person as well.

    1. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Wonderful California

      Have you seen the California gender-neutral geometric restroom sign (triangle on circle)? I'm thinking that gender-neutral Californian restrooms are hazardous waste sites, if not actually radio-active....

  16. Pete4000uk

    If you put it in your mouth...

    ...it will either give you cancer, make you fat or make you pregnant.

    1. Grant Fromage

      Re: If you put it in your mouth...

      ...it will either give you cancer, make you fat or make you pregnant.

      Shurely not the last one, certainly not in isolation, although If you are putting on all the greens you could be misled into thinking this impossibility was the cause. You could equally wrongly think it was the other impossible one on the triple scorecard.

    2. Charles 9

      Re: If you put it in your mouth...

      What about one's own foot?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look at the bright side...

    It annoys Starbucks and at least some of their customers.

  18. J27

    If this is the required standard of proof, they might as well stick a "causes" cancer sticker on all food and drink in the entire state. There are trace amounts of carcinogens in everything.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Numbers Please

    I remember all the media reporting a couple of ago that eating red meat 3 times a week or more increased your chances of getting colo-rectal cancer by 15%. Not one article said what the odds actually were. Using the CDC's own numbers, it turned out my odds, higher than average because of my age, were between 3%-4% if I ate the "cancerous" foods and still between 3%-4% if I didn't.

    I am consistently dismayed at both the quality of research and the abysmal reporting on it. It appears the profession of choice for the credulous, math illiterate and those lacking curiosity is journalism.

    Note: Not a dig at ElReg. News sites dedicated to particular field are usually staffed by reporters who work or have worked in the field and have a knowledge and interest in the subject.

    Please give me some latitude here on these items because it was a couple of years ago:

    Might have been 20%, but I believe it was 15%, might have been processed meat rather than red meat.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Numbers Please

      Cancer Research UK has an excellent blog post on the risks

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Numbers Please

        @korev: Thanks for the link. It is head and shoulders above any of the other articles I've seen on the subject.

        1. Korev Silver badge

          Re: Numbers Please

          You're welcome

  20. anothercynic Silver badge

    Who are the Council for Education and Research on Toxics?

    Toxics? TOXICS? Yet another half-baked cockamamy 'council' which is probably said lawyer and his wife or something equally stupid...

    FFS...

  21. a_yank_lurker

    Cooked versus Various Diseases

    One of the reasons to cook food is to kill bacteria that cause some nasty GI diseases. Diseases that if untreated (assuming they can be treated easily) can have a lethality of up to 20%. I think I will take a miniscule risk of cancer versus a more certain risk of death.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cooked versus Various Diseases

      There are those who would say the proper procedure is to take it and, if you live, pass your tolerance to the next generation and so on.

  22. Eddy Ito
    Facepalm

    HA! You almost got me with it being April Fools! Hahahahaha!!!

    What? Wait, really? OH FFS!!

  23. 2Nick3
    Coat

    The real winner here

    The real winner is the sign makers. They now get to turn out another 8400 signs (one at each entrance, so call it 3 per Starbucks, ~2800 in the state).

    I suspect a shadow lobby is behind this decision.

    (Mine is the one with the sugar packets in the pocket).

  24. Pseudonymous Clown Art

    Daily Mail Cancer song

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q3chJN9DCGg

    Obligatory. Sorry.

  25. RAMChYLD

    Make up your freaking mind, scientists!

    First you say coffee prevents cancer. So I started consuming more of it because stomach cancer runs in my family.

    Now you say coffee causes cancer.

    Make up your freaking mind!

  26. Herby

    This reminds me of...

    A conversation I had with an early Intel employee (before he went to Intel). He said something along the lines of "I was all for that healthy food stuff, but when they said that a barbecued steak was bad for you, that when I gave up".

    Hi, meh (jr).

  27. Spanners Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Remember MacDonald's Coffee?

    Macdonalds did not loose their case because the plaintiff had a good case. They lost it because they arrogantly mishandled it by assuming that facts and common sense carried any weight. The world will, no doubt, regard this as yet another piece of evidence that we can laugh at them. It will be interesting to see if this case was lost more on lawyer activities than actual evidence and reason.

    How much coffee does someone have to drink before it makes cancer 1% more likely? Perhaps they are more likely to be crushed by the sacks of coffee beans needed.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Remember MacDonald's Coffee?

      Rats and mice get cancer when given amounts 1,000 to 100,000 times greater than a normal human would be exposed to in their diet. Putting this silliness into perspective, you'd have to drink somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 cubic meters (0.0016 Olympic-sized swimming pool) of coffee every day for two weeks to match the same dose given the rodents.

      1. Swarthy
        Alert

        Re: Remember MacDonald's Coffee?

        Oh, Shit! I better cut back!

  28. Patched Out

    Having vacationed in San Diego last year...

    I am wondering why it is news now. The Starbucks on the boardwalk on Mission Beach had a Prop 65 warning placard already as of June of last year..

    BTW, there are Prop. 65 warning signs at the entrances to Disneyland as well ... One of my tourist activities was to photograph all the Prop. 65 warning signs we encountered. It's such a silly law that pretty well exemplifies California.

  29. madick

    Yet another health warning

    Quote from the Warranty Statement from a recently purchased Buffalo MiniStation:

    "WARNING:

    This product and its components contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects, or reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling."

    1. Is this knowledge confined to the State of California?

    2. Would washing one's hands eliminate the risk?

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