Starbucks Must Tell Customers Its Coffee Contains a Cancer-Causing Ingredient

Earlier today, a California Superior Court judge issued a ruling that's bound to stress out lots of java drinkers—even if it probably shouldn't. Companies like Starbucks will have to tell customers that their coffee can potentially cause cancer.

The case was first brought before the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2010 by the nonprofit Council for Education and Research on Toxics. The plaintiffs claimed that since the process of roasting coffee beans produces a chemical called acrylamide, which is suspected of being carcinogenic, 20 coffee-selling companies were obliged to affix a warning label to their cup of joe. As of late, the plaintiffs had reached settlements with several defendants like 7-Eleven to include warnings, but others like Starbucks chose to fight it out in court.

  California has long included acrylamide on its list of chemicals considered to cause cancer or reproductive health issues. The list was created as the result of the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, passed as a proposition in 1986. Companies that sell products in California containing these ingredients are mandated to warn customers that they are linked to these health risks.

According to the AP, Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said in his decision he didn't buy the defendants' argument they were exempt from the law because the amounts of acrylamide in coffee are insignificant.

But while there's evidence, mostly in animals, that acrylamide can be carcinogenic in high enough doses, that isn't the case for coffee itself. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified acrylamide as a group 2A carcinogen in 2002, meaning they found it could probably cause cancer in people based on animal research. But 14...