On January 9, 2019, the California Office of Environmental
Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) took a further – and
potentially final – step toward exempting coffee from
Proposition 65 warnings.
As we reported in an earlier alert, on June 15, 2018, OEHHA
issued a notice that it intended to adopt a new regulation that
would create a specific exemption for exposures to acrylamide and
other Proposition 65-listed chemicals that are in present in coffee
as a result of roasting coffee beans.
Section 25249.6 of Proposition 65 requires businesses to provide
clear and reasonable warnings before exposing consumers to any of
nearly 1,000 chemicals that have been identified by California as
causing cancer or reproductive toxicity. However, exposures that
pose "no significant risk of cancer" are exempted from
the warning requirement under section 25249.10 of the statute.
