Gary, Kudos to you for trying;-- but I think you are confusing your metaphors. And you can't equate logic with brainless juries or judges. And you know better than to rely on warning labels for safety protection!
1. It is assumed that "intelligent" people will make intelligent choices when opening a bottle with Warning labels that state the content can do you in. 2. It is assumed that a nursing baby, while potentially intelligent, does not have the capability to make any choices whatsoever as to what she is consuming. 3. It is assumed that a lactating mother has a direct effect on the well being of her baby. 4. Therefore, the mother is the responsible party for any adverse effects the baby may suffer due to conditions such as described in 1. above. 5. Therefore, we can assume that any decision rendered otherwise by judge and/or jury is brainless. For technological widgets we bend over backwards to make them safe and we don't rely on labels to protect the general user (trained service persons, however, can be "protected" by labels in certain cases). However, our legislators/politicians think they can affect and protect our behavior by labels and warning statements. This does not really work;--warning labels are for others, never for ourselves! So, what is the answer? -- Education for "intelligent" people; and safe design (in case of a single fault, and a subsequent fault) for "dumb" widgets. Plastering warning labels on breasts will no more eliminate alcoholic babies than plastering warning labels on men's ....... will eliminate HIV. Tania Grant [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary McInturff Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 5:33 PM To: 'Michael Mertinooke'; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Public Health and Safety Signs - Tomfoolery so delete if you Here in the US, awhile back, a woman was suing the liquor industry because she gave birth to a fetal alcohol syndrome child. Apparently, nobody in their right mind would assume that consuming a fifth of whiskey a day could be harmful to a developing fetus making the liquor industry patiently and damnably negligent in not putting warning labels on the bottles. (We got them now thank God!) During the coverage of the trial, and I don't remember the context, but the issue of passing nastiness to infants who were being breast fed was also brought up. While I didn't hear the end of this I often have wondered that if that was true, and this woman's case had merit (her lawyer took it up didn't he?) then the logical extension would be that mothers milk should come with a warning. Soooooo.... Just what the heck will this label look like, and even more importantly, just where are they going to put it so that people, can easily read it!!!!! Gary -----Original Message----- From: Michael Mertinooke [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 12:37 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Public Health and Safety Signs >signs at work. Is there a similar Directive for health and safety signs for >the general public? Whoo! The mind boggles! You mean with like people with "exclamation point in triangle" tattoos on various portions of the anatomy? Or biohazard labels on the door of the kids' rooms? Judging from some of the ANSI Z535 safety labels I see in the catalogs, the Human Warning Labels would be interesting indeed. .... =] Cheers! Mike ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall," ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall,"<br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com";>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>
