On Wednesday, a Los Angeles judge ruled in favor of a nonprofit that sued 90 coffee companies over claims that they had failed to comply with a state law that requires businesses to warn consumers about chemicals in their products that could cause cancer, Reuters reported.
The lawsuit, filed in 2010 by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, pointed to a chemical called acrylamide that exists in brewed coffee.
And while coffee is today’s target, tomorrow’s could be one of these foods.
- French fries
- Potato chips
- Crackers
- Bread
- Cookies
- Breakfast cereals
- Canned black olives
- Prune Juice
- Bacon
- Ham
- Hot Dogs
- Nutella
- Palm Oil
- Chocolate
- …
Bacon!?
And people around here are worried about a little of this or that in their water.
Truth be told Life is the leading cause of death. Living it comes with risks. And the increase in coffee consumption has in no statistical way coincided with a decrease in longevity or a rise in the incidence of cancer. That’s because most of these chemicals are never consumed or retained in the quantities necessary to result in cancer or higher risk of cancer among the general population. Quite often there are dozens of other variables including the person themselves.
And while California is requiring warnings because the chemical in question might increase the risk of colon cancer, we’ve got another study that says some other compound in coffee reduces that risk.
It wouldn’t be a complete month without a study (or two) on coffee. The latest study, just published in the American Journal of Clincical Nutrition, suggests that regular coffee drinkers may have a reduced risk of colon cancer.
It might do both but more likely neither as this is probably just more evidence of some number of monkey-scientists fishing for what amounts to a limited number of grants for research – but not limited enough to prevent dozens of studies that contradict each other in exchange for the day’s headlines.
There is indeed no biological hypothesis supporting a valid link between high-dose coffee and death from oral cancer. This fascinating and remarkable study is just another case of data-dredging, finding some statistical link using number-crunching that has no basis in reality. It’s a shame that some journals publish stuff like this without any real perspective.
It causes cancer or doesn’t cause cancer. It creates this cancer but not that one. It’s linked to cancer but only if you consume this much or that much.
There are plenty of things that will kill you, shorten your life, impair it, or affect the quality of life you are living.
I don’t think coffee is one of them, But California can’t help itself. Prop 65 lists the chemicals without regard to any other factor, and the world must bend to their will. And that’s the crux of the lawsuit. How much is too much and how much is safe? Prop 65 doesn’t leave any room for levels of risk and as such makes it impossible to balance compliance with common sense.
If there is no reason to scare your customers, which affects jobs, wages, benefits, profits (and Tax Revenue, California) why do that?
The big players have some time to appeal the ruling. The alternative is pay to add warnings for coffee products in one state out of fifty and dish out millions in fines.
The easiest solution is for California Coffee sellers to declare their outlets as sanctuary locations, immune from laws to which they object.
I’d love to see that play out in court.
