Prop 65 is a piece of California legislation created to protect consumers by requiring businesses to provide warnings about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. You may have come across a Prop 65 warning label on various products and wondered what it means and whether or not the product in question is safe for you and your family. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of Prop 65, its pros and cons, and how to interpret its warning label. What Is Prop 65? Prop 65* is short for Proposition 65, officially known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. This is a piece of California legislation created to protect consumers by requiring businesses to provide warnings about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. While the intentions of Prop 65 are noble, there is some controversy over its pros and cons as discussed below. *Read more about Prop 65 here. Click here for a list of over 800 Prop 65 chemicals. What Types of Products May Require a Prop 65 Warning? Prop 65 applies to a wide range of consumer products. The following is an incomplete list of some of the most common goods with Prop 65 warnings. Processed food & beverage may contain acrylamide, a chemical formed during high heat cooking/processing. Alcoholic drinks must carry warnings due to their association with cancer and reproductive toxicity. Seafood may contain mercury and other heavy metals. Personal electronic devices, like phones and tablets, may contain lead, cadmium, and phthalates. Chargers and cables often contain phthalates, which are used to make plastics more flexible. Some furniture may contain formaldehyde, which is used in adhesives and resins. Many household cleaning products contain solvents and detergents that may be harmful. Paints and varnishes may contain volatile organic compounds and other chemicals. Cosmetics may require a warning if they contain phthalates, lead, or other harmful chemicals. Hair dyes and treatments can contain chemicals like toluene and formaldehyde. Plastic children’s toys may contain phthalates and lead. Children’s jewelry may contain lead and cadmium. Flooring, carpeting, and construction materials may contain phthalates, flame retardants, and formaldehyde. Many garden chemicals, like pesticides and herbicides, contain ingredients that are harmful to humans. Herbal supplements may contain heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and mercury. Natural cosmetics may be labeled as “natural” or “organic” but still contain harmful chemicals. The Pros of Prop 65 The main benefits of Prop 65 are increased public awareness, encouragement of the use of safer products, and environmental protection. The labeling of potentially harmful chemicals in everyday products alerts consumers to health concerns that they may otherwise not be aware of. These warning labels allow them to make more informed choices about the products they consume. Because consumers prefer safer products, this in turn encourages the development of products with lower levels of harmful chemicals. This regulation also extends to California water sources and has resulted in the protection of water sources and overall improvements in environmental protection. The Cons of Prop 65 The main drawbacks of Prop 65 are overwarning, consumer confusion, and potential for misleading information. As you can see from the incomplete list above, such a wide range of consumer products contain the Prop 65 label that it starts to lose its meaningfulness. Instead of being a useful piece of information, Prop 65 warnings are often ignored. On the other end of the spectrum, Prop 65 can also cause undue consumer confusion and alarm as these warnings don’t always accurately reflect risk. Safety levels, as described below, are arbitrarily low and don’t reflect real levels of risk. Consumers may end up avoiding perfectly safe products that contain insignificant traces of chemicals far below the threshold for actual risk. How Are Safety Levels Determined by Prop 65? As mentioned above, one of the main issues with Prop 65 is that its warning is applied to many products that are actually safe because the thresholds for safe levels of the chemicals in question are inappropriately low. Which begs the question, how are safety levels determined according to Prop 65? The following are explanations from the plain language summary of Prop 65: “For chemicals that are listed as causing cancer, the "no significant risk level” is defined as the level of exposure that would result in not more than one excess case of cancer in 100,000 individuals exposed to the chemical over a 70-year lifetime. In other words, a person exposed to the chemical at the “no significant risk level” for 70 years would not have more than a “one in 100,000” chance of developing cancer as a result of that exposure.” And: “For chemicals that are listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm, the “no observable effect level” is determined by identifying the level of exposure that has been shown to not pose any harm to humans or laboratory animals. Proposition 65 then requires this “no observable effect level” to be divided by 1,000 in order to provide an ample margin of safety. Businesses subject to Proposition 65 are required to provide a warning if they cause exposures to chemicals listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm that exceed 1/1000th of the “no observable effect level.”” To summarize: Potential cancer causing chemicals must increase your risk of developing cancer after 70 years of interacting with it by a factor of 1/100,000. Potential reproductive harm chemicals must be 1000 times lower than the safe level. How Does Prop 65 Compare to Nationwide FDA Regulations? Proposition 65 is far more stringent than the FDA when it comes to allowable levels of chemicals. For example, when it comes to lead, a heavy metal that is ubiquitous in the environment and which has well known adverse effects, the FDA cites a maximum of 8.8 mcg/day for females of child-bearing age and 2.2 mcg/day for children. This allows for a ten-times safety margin for lead. In contrast, Prop 65 uses a thousand-times safety margin, allowing for a much smaller maximum lead dose of 0.5 mcg/day.* *Did you notice that those numbers don’t quite add up? To make things more complicated, different regulatory agencies use different numbers and studies to determine how much of a chemical is safe. Furthermore, in the past, the FDA has issued statements of concern regarding some Prop 65 warnings, noting that they go against known science. For example, the FDA has spoken out against the Prop 65 warning required on coffee due to the presence of acrylamide . Acrylamide is a chemical created by heating many different foods. In high doses it may cause cancer. However, not only is the presence of acrylamide in coffee far below levels of concern, research has shown that coffee consumption actually lowers your risk of certain cancers (1). A warning implying that coffee may increase the risk of cancer is therefore misleading. The promising news is that in 2019, as a result of public pressure, coffee was removed from the Proposition 65 list. This is a step in the right direction, but we believe that to be truly useful to the public in the way it was intended, further modifications to Prop 65 are required. Prop 65: Spotlight on Dietary Supplements As illustrated by the coffee example above, natural products, including food, beverage, herbs, and other supplements, may contain trace amounts of chemicals that in large quantities are problematic but when consumed in tiny amounts do not have a negative impact on the body. In the case of coffee, the benefits provided by the other components of coffee far outweigh the small risk posed by acrylamide, resulting in a net reduction in cancer risk rather than an increase as implied by the Prop 65 warning. When it comes to dietary supplements, the most common warnings that come up are lead and other heavy metals. Heavy metal toxicity is a serious problem, and I do not want to minimize that risk. However, heavy metals are naturally-occuring in the earth’s crust, and therefore present in most plant matter that comes from the earth, including fruits, vegetables, roots, nuts, and herbs. In most cases the benefits of healthy whole foods far outweigh the risks of the small amount of heavy metals that they have picked up from the soil in which they were grown, provided that they aren’t grown in a heavily contaminated area. That being said, heavy metals can be a real problem for certain dietary supplements, particularly those imported from areas with higher levels of soil contamination and lower regulatory standards. To protect yourself and your family, look for organic certifications (USDA Organic, Organic Certifiers, etc.) or other non-toxic indications (Clean Label Project). Also look for companies that third-party test their products for heavy metals and other contaminants. On a personal note, Proposition 65 has on more than one occasion thrown a wrench into product development here at Dr. Green Life. Certain ingredients, even when grown organically to the very highest standards, simply cannot pass stringent Prop 65 requirements. That leaves us with the difficult decision of whether to bring these products to market with a Prop 65 warning on the label, pivot to other ingredients, reduce doses, or abandon certain projects altogether. How To Interpret A Prop 65 Warning While there are flaws with Prop 65 warnings, we believe that they are ultimately useful for consumers, companies, and the environment. When coming across a product with a Prop 65 warning label, these considerations may be helpful when making a purchasing decision: Ask yourself: Is this product necessary for me to own? Look for alternatives without Prop 65 warnings Research the chemical listed on the warning label - are you comfortable with those risks? Evaluate your usage pattern - it’s more important that everyday items are non-toxic as compared to things you use infrequently. Check for certifications - products with reputable certifications (e.g. organic, non-toxic, etc) are likely to have very low levels of harmful chemicals. Check manufacturer’s information - many manufacturers provide detailed information about the chemicals in their products and potential risks. For example, Dr. Green Life has a full transparency policy - all of our third-party testing results are posted so that our customers can make informed choices. FAQs 1. Do Prop 65 Warnings Affect Me If I Don’t Live In California? All companies that sell products in California are required to have a Prop 65 warning on their product labels if they contain any of the listed chemicals. In an ideal world, only the products shipped to California would have a Prop 65 warning. However, for many companies, the logistics and cost of having separate labels for products going to California isn’t feasible. As a result, consumers in the rest of the United States and world at large usually end up with these warnings on their goods. 2. Does Prop 65 Apply To All Businesses? Proposition 65 warnings are not required of businesses that have 10 or fewer employees. In my opinion this is a good thing, especially when it comes to herbal medicine, where individual herbalists and medicine makers are an important part of many communities, traditions, and lives. The burden of complying with Prop 65 would be impossible for many small herbal makers. However, the absence of these warnings on their products may inadvertently imply that these products are safer, when in fact they are simply exempt. Summary Proposition 65 is a piece of California legislation aimed at protecting public health and the environment from harmful chemicals. It has been successful in raising consumer awareness and encouraging safe manufacturing practices by companies. However, Prop 65 isn’t without its faults and sometimes results in consumer confusion, overwarning, and misinformation. Consumers can get the most benefit from Prop 65 warnings by engaging with them thoughtfully and making informed decisions about the products they choose to bring into their lives. All of us at Dr. Green Life have some products in our own homes with Prop 65 warnings that we consider an acceptable risk for our families. See Product See Product See Product See Product See Product See Product See Product See Product SHOP & EARN REWARDS. JOIN TODAY! References: Proposition 65 - OEHHA Proposition 65 in Plain Language - OEHHA Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on FDA’s support for exempting coffee from California’s cancer warning law Coffee and Proposition 65: Frequently Asked Questions Businesses and Proposition 65 - OEHHA P65Warnings.ca.gov Zhao, L. G., Li, Z. Y., Feng, G. S., Ji, X. W., Tan, Y. T., Li, H. L., Gunter, M. J., & Xiang, Y. B. (2020). Coffee drinking and cancer risk: an umbrella review of meta-analyses of observational studies. BMC cancer, 20(1), 101. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-6561-9 Facebook Pinterest X Email How to Avoid Pesticides in Your Produce Read more 5 Common Toxins In Skincare Products Read more When To Take Vitamins For Maximum Benefit Read more The Risks of Glyphosate — And Why We're A Glyphosate Tested Company Read more