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Is Prop. 65 working? Here’s what a new study reveals
It’s hard to miss the warning signs posted at businesses and placed on consumer products in California — something like: This product can expose you to chemicals including arsenic, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer.
Californians see those signs posted in parking garages and theme parks, or affixed to products like vinyl-covered Bibles or cat litter.
We see those warnings because of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, passed as Proposition 65, to alert the public to some 900 chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm.
A Proposition 65 sign at the entrance to Disneyland warns park visitors of possible exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
In the decades that followed, business groups and policymakers debated the efficacy of Proposition 65. Does it actually protect Californians from the chemicals it sought to — or is it just an easy paycheck for plaintiffs’ attorneys?
A new study published last month in Environmental Health Perspectives offers evidence that the state law has reduced exposure to toxic substances among Californians — and the U.S. population overall.
The study “suggests the law helped to reduce exposure to toxic substances commonly found in diesel exhaust and plastic materials,” Times environmental reporter Tony Briscoe explained this week.
Researchers from the nonprofit health-research organization Silent Spring Institute and UC Berkeley examined blood and urine samples collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzing concentrations of 11 chemicals from before and after they were placed on the Proposition 65 warning list.
They found “significant decreases” of the chemicals in the majority of samples after they’d been added to the warning list.
What’s more, the reductions weren’t limited to Californians. Samples from across the nation showed reductions in the toxic substances, though “Californians generally had lower levels of biomonitored chemicals than the rest of the U.S. population,” the researchers noted.
One reason the state policy is having an effect elsewhere: The regulation led some companies to reformulate products on the Proposition 65 list in order to avoid warning labels altogether. Researchers interviewed some manufacturers, who said it wouldn’t make sense to change their formula in one state but not the 49 others.
“Our findings suggest that increased scientific and regulatory attention, as well as public awareness of the harms of Prop. 65-listed chemicals, prompted changes in product formulations that reduced exposure to those chemicals nationwide,” the authors wrote.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
Researchers also found “Californians had lower concentrations … for many of the diesel-related chemicals included in this study” compared to the rest of the U.S. population.
The reason why, researchers surmised: California’s nation-leading emissions standards.
“California’s rules set the state on a different path than the rest of the country,” the study states, “such that by 2014, diesel engines in California were producing less than half the emissions than would be expected if the state had followed the same trajectory as the rest of the nation.”
Though, as Tony explained in an article last week, the incoming Trump administration may put the state’s clean air initiatives in jeopardy.
Researchers did note a few limitations of their study, including that the majority of the 850 or so chemicals on the Proposition 65 list are not measured in blood or urine samples. The authors suggest more funding for federal and state biomonitoring programs “could enable future researchers to draw more definitive policy-relevant conclusions.”
The study did note that state residents had “higher mean concentrations” of four chemicals compared with the overall U.S. population: styrene, acrylonitrile, cadmium and mercury.
The study didn’t theorize about the first three chemicals, but as for mercury, it offered a couple of reasons why Californians might have more of the substance in their bodies.
“Fish consumption is known to drive exposure, and fish consumption is higher in California than in noncoastal areas of the United States,” they wrote. “In addition, California’s heavy historical use of mercury in mining continues to contaminate surface waters, creating additional routes of exposure.”
One subject I’ll be looking for more research on: Do Californians have higher levels of styrene because of the high concentration of automobiles, a result of our dependence on cars?
Styrene is a synthetic rubber used to make tires. When we drive, the chemical is released into the air, soil and water as toxic microplastics, which we’re ingesting and breathing in.
With roughly 35.7 million registered motor vehicles in the state, it’s not much of a leap to think that those hundreds of millions of tires’ worth of styrene emissions affect the levels of the harmful pollutant in our system (a problem electric vehicles could actually make worse).
You can read more about the Proposition 65 study in Tony’s latest story.
Today’s top stories
Homes and other property sit in ruins in Camarillo following the Mountain fire.
(Al Seib / For The Times)
Mountain fire
Election and politics
Crime and public safety
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This morning’s must read
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Spirit Air, cramped hotels, In-N-Out: Police say Chicago hit men killed in L.A. on a budget. The alleged assassins behind several recent murder-for-hire cases in Los Angeles were sloppy, authorities say, leaving behind a trail of evidence that links the killings to Chicago gang disputes.
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].
For your downtime
Don Stephenson (Doc Brown) and Caden Brauch (Marty McFly) in the North America tour of “Back to the Future: The Musical.”
(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What books, movies, TV shows, songs or works of art have inspired you?
Feel free to email us at [email protected], and your response might be included in the newsletter this week.
And finally … your photo of the day
Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they’re important to you.
One of Catalina Island’s famed bison.
(Doug Martin)
Today’s great photo is from Doug Martin of Los Angeles: Catalina and its famed island bison.
Doug writes: “This is probably the only place that bison can see the ocean. This handsome fellow is enjoying the magnificent view on the back of Catalina Island, looking west.”
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Amy Hubbard, deputy editor, Fast Break
Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.
