OEHHA Considers Adding Flavorings to Prop. 65 List

California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA)
has proposed adding two food and beverage flavorings, as well as a fungicide
and an herbicide contaminant to the list of chemicals known to the state to
cause cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of
1986 (Prop. 65).Comments are requested by April 10, 2012.

The chemicals are beta-Myrcene and Pulegone, which are components
of certain essential oils used to flavor foods and beverages and also used
as a fragrance in cosmetics, soaps, detergents, and herbal medicines, and
Isopyrazam, a fungicide used in Central and South America on bananas, and
3,3’,4,4’-Tetrachloroazo-benzene, a contaminant and degradation product of
certain herbicides. OEHHA has proposed the action under the authoritative
bodies listing mechanism, citing the National Toxicology Program and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency as institutions that have found the chemicals
to be carcinogens or “likely to be carcinogenic.”