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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

California proposition 65 is the classic example. Since it requires buildings to warn visitors if they contain cancer-causing substances, and since no landlord can possibly know every substance that even tenant or visitor might have, every building has a "this building may or may not contain cancer-causing substances" placard.

It's surreal and awesome.

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The problems with Prop 65 go beyond that. The legislation itself effectively made no attempt to define what it means for something to cause cancer. The commission put in charge of enforcement ultimately decided it would mean anything that current scientific evidence suggests has a 1 in 100,000 risk of eventually causing cancer if you are exposed to it for an entire lifetime. Subsequent lawsuits clarified that a substance must be included even if the risk is only proven to exist in non-human animals.

Ironically, I never even knew this, but apparently the proposition only exists because Jane Fonda thought it would draw left-leaning voters to the polls to hopefully vote for Tom Bradley over George Deukmejian in the 1986 race for California governor. She and the other proponents didn't even think the proposition itself would pass. But the proposition did pass and Bradley wasn't even elected!

My favorite part of prop 65 is they decided on a level of a warning when something was above one thousandth (1/1000) of the no observable effect level for anything that can cause birth defects or reproductive harm.

This caused a problem when they added Vitamin A to the list of chemicals known to cause reproductive harm since one thousandth of the no effect level is far below the RDA for pregnant women.

There's a warning when you step off the airplane onto the jetbridge at SFO.

Good luck refusing to get off the plane because you see the cancer warning and decide not to risk it.

My favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.

My favorite one is in Anaheim.

Everyone ready for a trip to the happiest place on earth?

One of the first things you see walking in...

> The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg

They should just have huge "The state of California contains..." signs all around the state borders.

We saw this on our trip there and had a good laugh about it.

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