As any parent understands, you come to rely on certain adages or pronouncements when you want your children to understand your exasperation with their behavior. A favorite around the Collatz household over the years has been, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” It has gotten to the point that I can begin that sentence and get an eye roll and completion of my mantra before the words are actually out of my mouth. If I said the same thing to our friends at the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), I wonder if I would get a similar response?
As most of you are probably aware by now, OEEHA published its final revision to the Prop 65 labeling laws in late August. The original regulation has been around for more than three decades and its ubiquity on packaging labels (both in California and nationally) or at pretty much anyplace California consumers might gather (anywhere from gas stations and dry cleaners to Disneyland and Dodger Stadium) has over time desensitized the state’s populous to the message OEEHA is trying get across.