Months after a California court ruled that all cafes had to put cancer warnings on coffee, the state’s top health hazard agency has blocked the move.
The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), in charge of regulating food and drink, issued a statement this week saying coffee has no significant cancer risk.
It comes on the heels of a report by the influential International Agency for Research on Cancer, which found that coffee is not cancerous – and even lowers the risk of some cancers.
The agency is now calling on the state to reverse the court ruling in order to update the regulations, removing the rule to warn coffee drinkers that they may be putting themselves at risk.
Officials at the OEHHA said the March ruling was not only based on dubious science, but opened the door to over-warning about everything, making it difficult to determine real threats from lesser ones.
California’s top regulation agency has urged the state to reverse the ruling because no studies can prove a direct link between coffee and cancer
‘The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – the only Proposition 65 authoritative body to have evaluated coffee – concluded that coffee consumption is not classifiable as to its overall carcinogenicity and is associated with reduced risk of certain cancers in humans,’ the OEHHA said in a statement.
The ruling approving labels in March was the climax of a years-long campaign by the nonprofit Council for Education and Research on Toxics.
The group filed lawsuits against just shy of 100 cafes and coffee chains, citing evidence that chemicals in the drink are carcinogenic.
Coffee contains acrylamide, which has been recognized in California as a carcinogen since the 1990s.
Under Proposition 65, the state has to warn everyone about every item that contains a chemical on that list – whether there is a causal link between the two or not.
However, the OEHHA is adamant that the levels of acrylamide in coffee are so minuscule that they pose no risk, and that warning against coffee smacks of hyperbole. Fries and toast contain more acrylamide than coffee, the agency points out, asking: are we going to have labels on everything?
After months spent working on their attack against the ruling, the OEHHA was finally granted a golden ticket: the IARC, the only organization with the power to sway California’s opinions on cancer, published a report in June this year which found that, while coffee contains acrylamide, the product is not cancerous.
In fact, the report found, coffee lowers the risk of liver and uterine cancers.
The OEHHA’s declaration comes on the heels of a wave of backlash from other health groups.
While the World Health Organization is known for over-warning – about anything from coffee to shampoo – a branch of the agency has since admitted there is no concrete evidence to prove a direct link between coffee and cancer.
The American Institute for Cancer Research, meanwhile, has found coffee may lower one’s risk of certain cancers.
When it comes to your heart, doctors cannot get enough of it: the American Heart Association endorses drinking up to six cups of coffee a day to boost heart health.