Warning labels are intended to tell consumers of the potential dangers of using a product, but they’ve turn into too common to be of profit.
“Warning labels were really rare until the Nineteen Sixties,” said W. Kip Viscusi, Distinguished Professor of Law, Economics and Management at Vanderbilt University. “Starting within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, cigarettes began to have a warning label. Since then, other products have followed suit, attempting to emulate cigarettes.”
Warning labels generally are available two forms: They warn the buyer before purchasing a product, for instance a cigarette box label that claims: “This product may cause oral cancer” and those who warn in regards to the dangers of improper use of the product and should say: “To forestall the furniture from tipping over, it should be permanently attached to the wall“.
One problem researchers have highlighted is people’s desensitization to warning labels because they appear to be all over the place.
“Considered one of my most important complaints in regards to the warnings is that they’ve turn into ubiquitous,” Viscusi said. “There may be an inclination to say things are dangerous [and] hit it with a warning, and it weakens the impact of the opposite warnings which might be there. So if every part within the supermarket is labeled unsafe, you do not know what to purchase.”
Viscusi has developed two criteria for effective warning labels: 1) they have to provide consumers with recent information and a pair of) the buyer must find the knowledge reliable.
“When firms make claims against their financial interests, it appears to be credible,” Viscusi said.
There was opposition to placing warning labels on certain products. In December 2022, A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cannot require tobacco firms to place graphic warning labels on cigarettes.
In the case of ensuring people use products safely, consumer protection advocates say warning labels must be a final resort.
“On the whole, the warning labels themselves [are] simply ineffective,” said Oriene Shin, a policy adviser at Consumer Reports. “They really should be coupled with a secure design.”
That is where the product design security hierarchy is available in. It’s a multi-stage process aimed toward eliminating the danger for the buyer, and when this shouldn’t be possible, minimizing it with security measures.
An example of a safeguard, Shin says, could be to require a potentially dangerous product, comparable to a lawn mower, to start out only when the user pulls a lever and presses a button, somewhat than requiring only one among these procedures.
The last level of the safety hierarchy is the warning label.
“I’ve probably seen a whole bunch of warning labels within the last week, and we probably don’t remember any of them,” Shin said. “And that is the issue with relying only on warning labels. [They’re] icing on the cake, not the tip, every part can be every part.”
Watch the video above to learn more about why warning labels don’t work and what we are able to do about it.