MORE GOOD NEWS FOR TITANIUM DIOXIDE ON THE PROP 65 FRONT - SCIENCE WINS THE DAY!!
In a significant victory for manufacturers and retailers of personal care products and for sound science, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California struck down California’s Proposition 65 as applied to titanium dioxide in cosmetics and personal care products.
Here are links to the Court Case outcome and a story about the case: https://www.personalcarecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025-08-12-Order-dckt-56_0.pdf?utm_campaign=8068746-25Membership&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=376075670&utm_content=376075670&utm_source=hs_email
On August 12, 2025, Chief Judge Nunley ruled that compelling businesses that sell these everyday products to provide a cancer warning violates the First Amendment because the warning is neither purely factual nor uncontroversial.
PCPC brought this lawsuit in federal court more than two years ago. On June 12, 2024, the court granted PCPC’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which temporarily barred the filing of new enforcement actions based on alleged exposure to titanium dioxide (airborne, unbound particles of respirable size) (“Listed TiO2”) from cosmetics and personal care products. Since then, PCPC and California’s Attorney General filed numerous expert reports and scientific studies concerning the alleged carcinogenic effects of Listed TiO2 in humans. Weighing all the evidence presented, Chief Judge Nunley found that a Prop 65 warning in any form for Listed TiO2 was not supported by a sufficient scientific consensus, specifically with respect to the alleged risk of cancer in humans.
This decision builds on a string of recent industry wins in the Ninth Circuit, including most recently the California Chamber of Commerce’s victory in a similar First Amendment challenge on Acrylamide. Here's info about the Acrylamide case: https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2025/05/california-federal-court-finds-prop-65-warnings-for-dietary-acrylamide-violate-first-amendment
Together, these cases affirm that states cannot force companies to include certain speech when the science is unsettled or the statement is misleading to ordinary consumers.
For companies, this ruling permanently blocks enforcement of Prop 65’s warning requirement as applied to Listed TiO2 in cosmetics and personal care products, sparing costly relabeling and reformulation endeavors, and protecting California consumers from a misleading warning statement that is premised on fiercely contested science. Importantly, with the court’s permanent injunction, private enforcers can no longer pursue Prop 65 actions over alleged exposures to Listed TiO2, thus eliminating a significant litigation risk for businesses.
This First Amendment approach should be used by other organizations against all these questionable warning label laws we are seeing proposed where the science is not sound, like in Texas and Louisiana.