W.F. so you called Savogran-check the date-scroll down near bottom of page you'll see Savogran mentioned-I believe they are fully aware of upcoming REGS-what do you think?
EDF Uses California's Prop. 65 To Transform
the Market For Highest Risk Consumer
Products, Get Non-Cancer Causing Alternatives
on the Shelf
Key court ruling prompts latest, largest settlement
(November 9, 1992--Oakland, CA) Capping a yearlong enforcement campaign against cancercausing paint stripper products, the Environmental Defense Fund
(EDF) announced today that Thompson &Formby, Inc., a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak, will take its popular Formby's and Red Devil brand paintstripper products off the market in California and will pay $190,000 to settle claims under California's landmark antitoxics law, Proposition 65. "This clears the way for a wave of new, alternative products that won't pose the same risks," said EDF senior attorney David Roe, "and we've guaranteed that those alternatives will arrive on the shelf in California by January 1, 1993."
Thanks to Proposition 65, the marketplace has tilted decisively against the highest cancer risk products that the average shopper is ever likely to see," Roe said. Conventional paint strippers are 60% to 90% pure methylene chloride, a chemical known to cause cancer.
The latest settlement came immediately after a key legal ruling in EDF v. Thompson & Formby, which was scheduled to start trial in a matter of weeks.San Francisco Superior Court Judge William J. Cahill ruled that the company could not take refuge behind weak federal rules on cancer warnings, which he found were inadequate to meet Proposition 65's requirement of "clear and reasonable warning." The judge also ruled that federal labeling rules for paintstripper cans did not preempt Proposition 65. "The court sent a very clear
message," Roe said. "Up to now, Thompson & Formby had been the company
most committed to a knockdown, dragout fight against Proposition 65 and the one least willing to explore alternatives."
Thompson & Formby's $190,000 payment is more than twice as high as what any other individual defendant has had to pay in EDF's actions against highrisk methylene chloride products. "It would have been much cheaper for them to have cooperated earlier," Roe said. Thompson & Formby is the 20th company to settle with EDF and agree to market changes for methylene chloride products.
W.M. Barr Co., another leading manufacturer, earlier agreed to remove 20 carcinogen-containing products from the shelves in California and replace them with 14 new paint stripper and other cleaning products that contain no Proposition 65 chemicals.
Sinclair Paints, Jasco, Savogran, Sunnyside, KMart,Payless, TruTest, and Ace Hardware are among the other companies to have settled Prop. 65 actions brought by EDF.
In its legal campaign EDF has concentrated on quickly obtaining major riskreducing changes in the marketplace, such as the elimination of methylene chloride product lines and the introduction of competitive alternatives. One case in the campaign, EDF v. Parks Corporation, remains outstanding. "We still very much hope to be able to bring a Proposition 65 case to trial," Roe said. "But the
preliminary rulings in this case will serve a strong deterrent purpose by themselves, even without a verdict. And the risk reduction we got from this company in California was complete."
Now that manufacturers know there are less toxic choices, they should be
offering them to consumers in all 50 states," Roe added. EDF is represented in
its Proposition 65 enforcement actions against methylene chloride products by
William Bennett Turner and Joseph Sandoval Jr. of the San Francisco law firm
of Rogers, Joseph, O'Donnell, Quinn.
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