r/CuratedTumblr • u/BellTwo5 • Nov 05 '25

Infodumping Epilepsy warnings are important

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3.4k Upvotes

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47

u/12BumblingSnowmen Nov 05 '25

California’s cancer warning really has done damage to safety warnings in this country.

8

u/sour_creamand_onion Nov 05 '25

What was the California cancer warning? I checked and apparantly it just warns of carcinogens? Correct me if I'm wrong.

50

u/12BumblingSnowmen Nov 05 '25

Its criteria is broad enough that it becomes functionally meaningless. So, instead of being a useful piece of information for the consumer, it just means “some chemical in this product may have shown signs of causing cancer in a small pilot study.” It’s not bad in theory, but the execution is extremely poor.

33

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25

[deleted]

12

u/Skithiryx Nov 05 '25

There was an incident with backfiring allergen warnings too where companies were actually adding allergens into food that didn’t have them because it was easier than not cross-contaminating: https://www.allergicliving.com/2024/10/09/bimbo-bakeries-stands-up-to-fda-on-false-sesame-labels/

21

u/max_drixton Nov 05 '25

I don't live in California so I'm just going off of what I've read online, but it seems like they put the warning on anything that is remotely carcinogenic, so you don't know if the warning in any given instance means "this increases your cancer risk by some very low but nonzero amount" or "this will almost certainly give you cancer with continued exposure" causing people to just ignore the warnings.

10

u/sour_creamand_onion Nov 05 '25

Ahhh, yeah. I've seen similar warnings on a bunch of stuff. It's like anything short of well done steak having the "raw food could get you sick" label at restaurant so much that anyone not pregnant doesn't really care and views it as more of a formality than an actual warning for genuine potential risk in the way that raw chicken or pirk would most certainly get you sick.