SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline) - A California federal judge says the State has no right to put acrylamide, a naturally occurring compound in roasted foods and coffee, on its Prop 65 list of potential carcinogens.
Judge Daniel Calabretta on May 2 entered a summary judgment that prevents the State from requiring a warning label on products with acrylamide, siding with the California Chamber of Commerce after it brought a challenge on behalf of businesses targeted by Prop 65 plaintiff lawyers.
"Providing misleading or false labels to consumers also undermines California's interest in accurately informing its citizens of health risks at the expense of CalChamber's First Amendment rights," Calabretta wrote.
"Accordingly, the balance of equities and public interest weigh in favor of permanently enjoining Prop 65's warning requirement for dietary acrylamide."
His ruling came two years after he rejected a dismissal request from the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, which operates out of the offices of plaintiff attorney Raphael Metzger.
CERT sued Starbucks and more than 80 other coffee retailers while hitting others with notices of violations. CERT had initial success with big settlements more than 10 years ago, but now has little revenue and doesn’t bother to maintain a website.
In California, products containing certain ingredients that are on the Prop 65 list as possible carcinogens require a warning label. But a 2019 regulation stated it would be unnecessary to include acrylamide on the Prop 65 list, severely hampering CERT's effort to push litigation.
However, California then issued a safe harbor warning for acrylamide in food, effective Jan. 1 of this year, requiring disclosure that acrylamide has been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals and attributing other cancer findings to research groups.
"While each sentence of the new warning may be factual in a strict sense of the word, under Ninth Circuit case law the Court does not take such a narrow view of the warning," Calabretta wrote.
"Rather, the Court looks to the meaning of the warning in context, which clearly communicates the message that dietary acrylamide poses a risk of cancer."
Animal studies on acrylamide's cancer risk are unreliable, Calabretta added, sifting through the expert opinions provided by CalChamber and state Attorney General Rob Bonta.
He also noted the Food and Drug Administration is similarly uncertain, writing in 2024 that it is "not clear exactly what risk acrylamide poses to humans." The FDA said tumors developed in animals were possibly the result of exposures to acrylamide "much greater than those found in human food."