7-Elevens must post info about potential cancer in brew

Coffee customers at 7-Eleven stores in California soon will be seeing notices that their brew contains a chemical that may cause cancer.

A Los Angeles judge approved a settlement Tuesday requiring the chain to pay $900,000 to the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, which filed the suit in 2010, and post warnings of a potential carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65. That law, approved by the voters in 1986, requires businesses to notify the public when their products, or any products they release into the environment, contain ingredients that have been shown to cause cancer or birth defects.

A trial is under way in Los Angeles on the organization’s lawsuit that seeks to require other coffee sellers, including Starbucks, to post similar warnings.

The chemical is acrylamide, which is produced when some foods are roasted or fried. It is found in potato chips and French fries, which carry their own Prop. 65 warning labels.

Acrylamide is listed as a potential workplace carcinogen by U.S. government agencies, which have set limits on its emission. The American Cancer Society said last year it was still uncertain about whether the chemical actually does increase the risk of cancer.

The National Coffee Association, the trade group for the industry that generates more than $40 billion a year in revenue nationwide, denies that coffee contains acrylamide or any other ingredient at carcinogenic levels.

After reviewing research on coffee, cancer and acrylamide, the Coffee Association “believes that it demonstrates that drinking coffee does not increase — and may decrease — the risk of cancer,” the association’s president, William Murray, told a federal health agency in 2014. He contended that plaintiffs’ lawyers were using Prop. 65 to enrich themselves and pressure businesses into accepting customer warnings.

A lawyer for 7-Eleven declined to comment on the coffee settlement. The leader of the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, attorney Raphael Metzger, could not be reached for comment.