pemlock wrote:Lead is really bad for you. A very nasty poison which accumulates in the body, so there are good reasons to minimize the use.
However, I've never heard that it would cause cancer.
You are correct about it not causing cancer, I read some more and it seems companies are putting a warning on their products just in case something in their product contains one of the many things listed in Proposition 65 as being potentially harmful because they may get in trouble if even a trace amount is found.
Here is what one company wrote on their blog:
"
The State of California requires us by law to include the following warning on our products.
"This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm,"
We provide the warning in order to comply with this California right-to-know law.
This warning is the result of a law passed in California in 1986, referred to as the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, or more generally referred to as "Proposition 65."
Why do we need to include this warning? Annex products wish to comply with all applicable laws, including Proposition 65. With the way Proposition 65 is structured, however, it is not possible to ascertain, with 100% scientific certainty, whether or not a particular product requires a warning for any one of the hundreds of chemicals on the Proposition 65 list. At the same time, the law allows any private person “in the public interest” – so-called private bounty hunters – to sue companies to enforce the law, and to keep a percentage of the penalties imposed. The law’s lack of certainty about when to warn is often exploited by these bounty hunters, who file thousands of Proposition 65 lawsuits every year. Penalties can be very high; the cost of defending a case also is very high.
As a result of the potential penalties and the current private enforcement climate, we, as well as many other manufacturers, have elected to provide the Proposition 65 notice out of an abundance of caution in order to ensure compliance and avoid the potential for liability. It is not financially possible for us to constantly test our materials for traces of every chemical in the California Proposition 65 warning list.
The warning does not mean that our products actually will cause any harm. Moreover, a Proposition 65 warning does not mean a product is in violation of any product-safety standards or requirements. In fact, the California government has clarified that “the fact that a product bears a Proposition 65 warning does not mean by itself that the product is unsafe.” The Californian government has also explained, “You could think of Proposition 65 more as a ‘right to know’ law than a pure product safety law.” See
http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html.
