About Prop 65
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including lead, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Cal Prop 65 (California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) is a law that applies only in the state of California. (However, since most companies do business nationally, you may see this warning on products purchased or sold in other states.) The California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says that Cal Prop 65 “was intended to protect California citizens and the state’s drinking water sources from chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals.”
To comply with the law, companies must put a warning label on products sold within the state if they exceed California’s perceived safety levels for certain elements (including heavy metals and minerals like arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, etc.).
According to the state’s OEHHA: a Cal Prop 65 warning on a product “does not necessarily mean a product is in violation of any product-safety standards or requirements.” These elements are not used to make Fantastic Fungi products or those from our partners; the raw materials are also tested for these elements. However, some of them — including lead and mercury — can naturally occur in certain types of soil and are classified as a chemical by the state of California.
We carefully curate all the products we sell; both those that bear the Fantastic Fungi name and those from our partners are tested for efficacy and safety. Those tests include some of the elements that require a Cal Prop 65 label.
Under California law, businesses like ours have to provide “clear and reasonable” warning before exposing anyone to the chemicals included in the law. That’s why you’ll see a small label on certain products. Across the state of California, you may also see signs in public, too. This law, while written to protect consumers, has expanded from 30 chemicals to hundreds of them decades later. Even the smallest amounts (far lower than what is generally considered safe) has to be disclosed. Attorney Lisa Halko is an expert on Prop 65 and said, back in 2009: “Prop. 65 creates alarm about trace amounts of chemicals that have no actual risk or have a risk that is obviously outweighed by the benefit of the food. Vegetables may contain a certain amount of lead if they grow in the ground, and fish contain mercury because they live in the sea.”
This law doesn’t apply nationally, and the US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require any warning on those same products. Consumers should always weigh their own risks when consuming any product, but we are sharing this information with you to be compliant and transparent.