Ah yes, it's January, so the "tort reformers" who think no one should ever be able to sue for anything are out in force again with their "wacky warning" labels. This is the contest intended to make you think that companies have to put blindingly, obviously stupid warning labels on their products for the sole reason of avoiding frivolous lawsuits.

DETROIT - A warning that consumers shouldn't use a heat gun that produces temperatures of 1,000 degrees as a hairdryer has won an anti-lawsuit group's award for the wackiest label of the year.

The Wacky Warning Label Contest, in its ninth year, is conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch as part of an effort to show the effects of lawsuits on warning labels.

"When judges see it as their job to dismiss cases that are rooted in frivolous theories, we'll see fewer wacky labels and more fairness in the courts," said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, the group's president.

The $500 first prize went to Tom Brunelle of Holland, who spotted the heat gun warning.

Uh-huh. Take a look at actual pictures of the winning products. What do I see?

• A tool that blows hot air and looks very much like a hair dryer warns people that it's not what it looks like.
• A knife safety brochure warns to treat sharp knives separately, including not reaching blindly for them, washing them separately, and yes, not trying to catch them when they fall. If you're cooking or working with a tool that's on the counter and you see it start to fall, your first instinct is to try to catch it. This is a very bad instinct with knives. I've never tried to catch a falling knife, but I've knocked knives off of counters and had to very quickly stop myself from grabbing for them.
• A yacht club that went to the trouble of printing napkins that look exactly like navigational charts. Look at the napkin - this is not a cartoon shading, it's complete with water depths and other nautical navigation features. If you saw this in the club, and it looked just like your normal map, why wouldn't you think it was accurate? It's like picking up a take-out menu on the way out of a restaurant - it looks just like the real menu, but smaller and on lighter paper. Why wouldn't you believe it was accurate unless you were told?
• A note for ovenware that says "Warning: Ovenware will get hot when used in oven." I'm more inclined to believe the "duh!" on this one, but that's because I looked at the brochure and see that it appears to be for a metal pan of some kind. Some "ovenware" is also usable in the microwave, and guess what? It doesn't always get hot.
• Yeah, it should be obvious that animal urine powder is "not for human consumption," but I'm a rural boy. I saw that warning on bags of fertilizer 30 years ago, because it's supposed to be telling you not to put it on stuff you're about to eat. Duh.

If you think warning labels are dumb, look what happened to this woman in Massachusetts after a quiet FDA rule change in 2004 removed the requirement to put warning labels on bags of chips made with Olestra, and when Frito-Lay immediately took advantage of it by rebranding the cursed "WOW! chips made with Olean!" as "Light" chips that only mention Olestra in small print in the ingredients list:

The plaintiff, a 30-year-old woman from Braintree, Mass., experienced severe gas, cramps, and an urgent need to go to the bathroom after eating Ruffles Light potato chips. She says that she would not have bought the product had she had known the chips contained olestra and is asking the court to require labels on Light chips warning consumers about the potential for adverse reactions. […]

The laxative-like effects of olestra became fodder for late-night comics in the mid-1990s, but the complaints filed by people who became sick after eating olestra are not amusing. Since 1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received from CSPI, Frito-Lay (a division of PepsiCo), and Procter & Gamble (the developer of olestra) more than 20,000 adverse reaction reports--mostly involving diarrhea, flatulence, greasy stools, stained underwear, orange-colored oil in toilet bowls, and cramps. Some have sought medical attention in emergency rooms (and even undergone surgery) or experienced incontinence in public places after getting sick after eating chips made with olestra.

[…]"I remember learning about the effects of olestra, so never in a million years would I have knowingly purchased potato chips that contain it," said Lori Perlow, the plaintiff. "I was driving my car when my symptoms hit. Frankly I feel lucky to have reached my destination in one piece."

It happens around here, too. At the local Mega-Lo-Mart, every time the section of baked chips takes off, the Frito-Lay man comes in and puts "Light" (and before that, "WOW!") chips in the same spot on the same shelf. Baked Ruffles selling like hotcakes? Frito-Lay pulls them for 3 months and stocks only "Ruffles Light" in the same spot. Baked Lays doing well? They're cut back or withdrawn and "Lays Light" show up in the exact same spot. Frito-Lay thinks that Olestra is a god-send, and that if people would just stop complaining and start eating it, everything would be fine.

Local residents disagree:

Two Lexington, OK, siblings, aged 7 and 10, experienced severe stomach pains, greasy stools, and vomiting after eating Tostitos Light chips, according to their mother, who contacted CSPI.

Maybe in 2007, "Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch" can make fun of Ms. Perlow, who was dumb enough to think that eating a bag of potato chips shouldn't give her "severe gas, cramps, and an urgent need to go to the bathroom" because it was made with a dangerous food additive listed only in tiny print. Ha ha, those dumb people who sue, what will they ignore next?

(We discussed this before back in 2004.)