Fluke 87V causes cancer!

[Fungus]

Check the warning on the side of the latest Fluke 87 packaging:

[ataradov]

It does not cause cancer, but contains chemicals known to cause cancer. There is a difference.

[helius]

Not only that, but the state of California has much different standards than the federal EPA or the IARC for what constitutes a carcinogen. Basically, just about everything causes cancer in California.

[tszaboo]

There is the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_65_list_of_chemicals
The list has testosterone.
I contain materials known to the state of california to cause cancer.

My other favorite materials are wood dust and PVC and Asphalt. I guess you should not eat your multimeter.

[ataradov]

Apart from putting this label on buildings where people can potentially smoke, I don't really see over-use of the label. So I wonder what exactly Fluke put into their meter. If there is an improvement can be made to that system, that would be the one - be more specific.

They also made similar warning recently for BPA. That stuff can be in the plastics, I guess.

EDIT: BPA is apparently on the list already, so I'm not sure why they needed separate prop and a label for that.

[mtdoc]

Standard California prop 65 warning. Old news - they've been around for 30 years.

Not only that, but the state of California has much different standards than the federal EPA or the IARC for what constitutes a carcinogen.

Yes, thankfully.

Basically, just about everything causes cancer in California.

Not quite. Here's the current list

[mtdoc]

The list has testosterone.

Also estrogens and other naturally occurring hormones, as it should:

The list contains a wide range of naturally occurring and synthetic chemicals that are known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Source

[deflicted]

The proponents of Prop 65 had good intentions. It sounds good on paper. Drag everything out into the light, and let people make educated decisions. However, it has become yet another case of information overload. When almost everything you buy (slight exaggeration) has a Prop 65 warning label on it, the signal-to-noise ratio is so low that the warning labels are effectively useless.

Not to mention the stupidity of representing carcinogenicity as a boolean. So even the most carcinogenic substance on the list gets the exact same Prop 65 warning label as the least carcinogenic substance. In terms of your actual risk of developing cancer from said substances, that's a pretty huge range. At the high end, you have the usual things like industrial solvents, etc. And at the low end, things like food coloring that has only been shown to cause cancer in lab rats getting massive daily injections of the stuff.

And of course, the whole thing is premised on the idea that people are going to see the warning label, decide to go do some research, and then make an informed decision. That's laughable. The vast majority of Californians (including me) just ignore the labels entirely. Most of the rest probably just get scared off of buying anything with a Prop 65 label on it. Maybe there's some really tiny percentage of people that actually do the research, but those are just the same people who'd be doing it anyway, and I sincerely doubt that those people find the warning labels to be useful, since you basically just have to research everything.

[Monkeh]

The state of California is known to cause cancer.

[WastelandTek]

only in California, you are safe everywhere else

[ataradov]

only in California, you are safe everywhere else

You are oblivious and misinformed everywhere else.

Don't get me wrong Prop65 is not the best example of a good implementation, and that's something to work on. But it is important to provide information to consumers.

Same way as nutrition facts on the food provide valuable information in a standardized format.

[deflicted]

Don't get me wrong Prop65 is not the best example of a good implementation, and that's something to work on. But it is important to provide information to consumers.

Despite my misgivings regarding Prop 65's usefulness, I agree with this. I'd rather see it improved than scrapped.

Edit: I think a good start would be to classify things into a couple/few categories, ranked by your actual risk of getting cancer. I know, that's not necessarily an easy thing to quantify, but there needs to be some way to distinguish the risk of getting cancer from arsenic, formaldehyde, and asbestos from the risk of getting cancer from something like a ubiquitous food additive that's only been shown to cause cancer in some very specific lab setting, and only in lab animals.

[WastelandTek]

only in California, you are safe everywhere else

You are oblivious and misinformed everywhere else.

Don't get me wrong Prop65 is not the best example of a good implementation, and that's something to work on. But it is important to provide information to consumers.

Same way as nutrition facts on the food provide valuable information in a standardized format.

you are one of the more literal individuals I have interacted with of late

[Richard Crowley]

I strongly agree with @deflicted.  It is a textbook example of information overload.  When (practically) everything is labeled as "potentially carcinogenic" then the label has lost its effectiveness. It has turned into a joke. Do you really think many (any?) people stopped smoking because every pack of cigarettes had a warning label on them?

[ataradov]

Do you really think many (any?) people stopped smoking because every pack of cigarettes had a warning label on them?

Not sure about the US, but there is a strong drop in smoking population in Russia. But it is hard to attribute it to specifically new packaging markings, since a number of other measures were implemented at the same time (limits on advertising, placement is stores, higher prices, etc). I'm sure it did not hurt, especially stuff with pictures of smoker's lungs.

Toning it down and making labels more specific will be better, obviously. At least now you know that if there is no label, there are none of of those chemicals in the product. Whether is makes a difference - hard to tell. I don't remember seeing this label on things I buy anyway, so it is not that common.

[deflicted]

Do you really think many (any?) people stopped smoking because every pack of cigarettes had a warning label on them?

Not sure about the US, but there is a strong drop in smoking population in Russia. But it is hard to attribute it to specifically new packaging markings, since a number of other measures were implemented at the same time (limits on advertising, placement is stores, higher prices, etc). I'm sure it did not hurt, especially stuff with pictures of smoker's lungs.

Toning it down and making labels more specific will be better, obviously. At least now you know that if there is no label, there are none of of those chemicals in the product. Whether is makes a difference - hard to tell. I don't remember seeing this label on things I buy anyway, so it is not that common.

There has definitely been a very significant decrease in smoking rates in the US over the last several decades. I have no way of measuring just how much of that decrease is due to warning labels, but personally I think the effect of the warning labels is probably pretty small compared to just the general increase in public awareness of the association between smoking and cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. And it's pretty obvious that reading warning labels is NOT the primary means by which Americans have become aware of these dangers. In fact, I would actually be surprised if there's a single person, ever, who first learned of the dangers of smoking by reading a warning label. Which means that, at best, the warning labels are just there to reinforce the message. That is, they're there to nag smokers and get them to think about the fact that they're jeopardizing their health every time they open up a pack of cigarettes. But again, how effective is that really? I'm not saying the answer is zero. But if you're trying to draw some correlation between warning labels and overall smoking rates, I think it's probably near zero.

[rsjsouza]

Do you really think many (any?) people stopped smoking because every pack of cigarettes had a warning label on them?

Not sure about the US, but there is a strong drop in smoking population in Russia. But it is hard to attribute it to specifically new packaging markings, since a number of other measures were implemented at the same time (limits on advertising, placement is stores, higher prices, etc). I'm sure it did not hurt, especially stuff with pictures of smoker's lungs.

In Brazil that was the biggest factor in reducing cigarette consumption. Government heavily taxed it and sales took a severe dive.

There has definitely been a very significant decrease in smoking rates in the US over the last several decades. I have no way of measuring just how much of that decrease is due to warning labels, but personally I think the effect of the warning labels is probably pretty small compared to just the general increase in public awareness of the association between smoking and cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. And it's pretty obvious that reading warning labels is NOT the primary means by which Americans have become aware of these dangers. In fact, I would actually be surprised if there's a single person, ever, who first learned of the dangers of smoking by reading a warning label. Which means that, at best, the warning labels are just there to reinforce the message. That is, they're there to nag smokers and get them to think about the fact that they're jeopardizing their health every time they open up a pack of cigarettes. But again, how effective is that really? I'm not saying the answer is zero. But if you're trying to draw some correlation between warning labels and overall smoking rates, I think it's probably near zero.

Anedoctal evidence from some smoker friends match your opinions. In addition, most of them felt more compelled to drop or simply nagged due to peer pressure from family/friends - in this case I can see that awareness campaigns and even the stamped photographs on the packs are a key influencer to peers.

[Electro Detective]

Send them all to me guys, I'll  dispose of them in a responsible manner 

and ensure they don't go into dumpsters, sewers, rivers, 3rd world landfills, stripped for parts and flogged on Ebay,
nor shipped to outer space into the sun

If you're short on cash, I'll pay the shipping charges to get those cancerous meters to me, because that's the type of guy I am 

But don't hesitate, DO IT RIGHT NOW before some growth appears on your body    and... it's TOO LATE!    

[kcbrown]

only in California, you are safe everywhere else

You are oblivious and misinformed everywhere else.

Don't get me wrong Prop65 is not the best example of a good implementation, and that's something to work on. But it is important to provide information to consumers.

Same way as nutrition facts on the food provide valuable information in a standardized format.

Well, not quite the same way.  The nutrition labels give you actual quantities to work from.  The Prop 65 labels don't.  That's why they're essentially worthless.  Their over-inclusiveness eliminates the possibility of their usefulness in their current form, because there is no way to meaningfully distinguish the risks arising from an item that has the label versus an item that doesn't.

[CatalinaWOW]

The Prop 65 labels in Cali are worse than worthless.  They provide negative value since their overuse has or will prevent people from paying attention to things that do matter.  They also add small costs to each item affected.  The incremental cost is tiny, but the cumulative cost are actually enough for fabulous vacations for just about every member of this forum.

Two terrible examples of this signage doing its negative job.

1.  Virtually every convenience store, grocery store and filling station has a sign like this at the entry.  Zero value added because after reading this sign I don't know which of the thousands of products inside are the guilty parties.  Is it the motor oil (small but real danger here, but who needs a sign), the peanut butter (really, really small danger and it doesn't mention the allergy risks which are much larger) or something even more innocuous.  Because of this, I and virtually everyone else who encounters this sign and its brethren develops a tendency to ignore it since there is no useful information conveyed on what to avoid.

2.  I recently bought a pallet of Douglas fir lumber.  Not treated, just dimensionally sized lumber.  Each and every piece of wood in this pallet had a little paper Prop 65 warning stapled to the end.  Hard to say whether the warning pertained to the potential for wood dust or the terpenes and other chemicals found naturally in all conifers.  But I had to go through and pry the staples out of each one to avoid damage to my saws and to get rid of an unsightly piece of paper.  Someone on the production end had to staple each one on.  What a waste of time and resources.

California could save a lot of time and effort and get equal value by putting signs at the state lines warning that this state contains chemicals known to cause cancer and eliminating all of the internal warnings.

If they really wanted to get smart they would rewrite the law to require labeling only those things which cause a significant (say 10%) increase of cancer at normal levels of exposure.  Forget trying to protect those people who drink 40 liters of artificially sweetened drinks a day.

[tooki]

Apart from putting this label on buildings where people can potentially smoke, I don't really see over-use of the label. So I wonder what exactly Fluke put into their meter. If there is an improvement can be made to that system, that would be the one - be more specific.

They also made similar warning recently for BPA. That stuff can be in the plastics, I guess.

EDIT: BPA is apparently on the list already, so I'm not sure why they needed separate prop and a label for that.

Probably the plasticizers used in PVC, which is almost certainly what the rubber bumper is made of.

[BravoV]

I know its very subjective, has anyone feel that at Fluke's handhelds, the plastic are just feels different and "better", say compared to Keysight/Agilent's ?

I mean starting from the yellow holster, the rubber feels nice even for years, and the grayish hard plastic for the case too, feels strong say compared to Keysight's. 

[ADT123]

Even Mickey Mouse causes cancer in California

[Electro Detective]

Don't eat anything there, bring your own rainwater,

and don't bonk back at the hotel/motel,
lest someone gets knocked up and pops out zombie twins

(lose Disneyland and go to Queensland Australia next time, for a real holiday that isn't chemohazardous to your health and wallet)

[SL4P]

I bought a pair of brake discs at a dealership spares dept in LA, and before I could pay & leave had to sign a release that the products I purchased were not intended for human consumption...??!
Just slightly crazy.