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At a glance, warning people about substances that can cause cancer seems like a sensible way to protect the public health. California's Proposition 65 requires companies to inform their employees and consumers if their products expose them to "chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm." But as so many regulations do, the 1986 ballot initiative wound up leading to some really stupid labeling requirements and predatory lawsuits. The latest example is a ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elihu M. Berle requiring coffee roasters in the state to label their products as potentially carcinogenic due to the presence of a naturally occurring chemical called acrylamide.Acrylamide forms upon heating in many foods, particularly starchy ones like french fries and potato chips, but also coffee, chocolate, certain breads, certain teas, black olives, and prunes. It won't hurt you, because humans seldom consume any carcinogenic foodstuff in the massive quantities that induce cancer activity in rats.I repeat, you should not be worried about coffee cancer, no matter what California requires Starbucks to print on your cup. As The Washington Post reports, rodents can develop cancer from acrylamide, but only when fed "rates 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than what humans consume in food." And coffee is not even the chief culprit! That would be potato chips, in which "the highest acrylamide concentrations were measured in thousands of parts per billion, much lower than the levels that cause cancer in lab animals" . . .
