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Faustkatt t1_j63pt42 wrote

Maybe cynical of me but complaining the warnings aren't big enough really sounds like they just want to feel like it wasn't their fault because they didn't think to read it, or didn't follow it, and now wish they had been forced to.

I don't think we miss warnings because they're small. We know they're there. Just about anything has them, from sprays to toys to batteries to food. What doesn't have a warning on it is probably a shorter list than what does.

We ignore them because we're inundated with them. They're background noise. We have to make a conscious choice to stop ignoring them when we are in a situation that they matter.

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Mississimia t1_j68btxd wrote

I mean, its true. We're inundated with warnings. But honestly, who would let "keep out of reach of children" stop them from giving deodorant to their (stinky) teen?

The parents want to believe the only way this tragedy could have been stopped is if the manufacturer had been more responsible. But the best chance to stop this tragedy was not by avoiding giving the deodorant to her in the first place, but by taking it away from her when it became clear she wasn't using it safely and appropriately.

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ironically-spiders t1_j6bci1q wrote

Yes to both you and the person you responded to. They put the appropriate warning on there and you assume people are going to use a product even remotely close to how you're supposed to. If you drink an entire bag of coffee in one sitting, it's not the coffee maker's fault when you have a heart attack as a result.

It's a tragedy, but it's not the fault of the deodorant maker. Aerosols should not be inhaled in great amounts. At all. They knew she wasn't doing a quick spritz, it's their responsibility to keep her safe when she can't make that kind of decision on her own.

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kitsune t1_j67zrwz wrote

Yeah, now please tell me how you go about identifying the situations where they matter.

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Faustkatt t1_j68530q wrote

I mean you would probably intuit that if you have a food allergy you might want to pay attention to the warnings on food. That if you were giving a toy to a young child you may want to check for small separate parts that pose a choking risk, including button batteries. I doubt you'd let children handle sprays of any kind without at the very least checking what happens if it gets in their eyes. If you're cleaning a room that can't be well ventilated it might be a good time to see just what you're in for if you breathe in the fumes coming off the cleaning products. et cetera, et cetera.

This stuff is mostly common sense. People are just fallible, they get complacent, especially with something that could be dangerous under the wrong circumstances but is also an everyday thing people use all the time without issues.

In this case, I fully expect their proposed change would be pretty useless. A big sign saying 'solvent use can kill instantly' doesn't even give you any additional unsafe behaviour to avoid—unless you're expected to stop using deodorant entirely, thinking you may at any point and under any circumstances drop dead. Realistically people will not stop, it'll just be one more line after the long paragraph of warnings already on that product, and people will still occasionally miss their cue to go back and re-read the warnings.

I'd speculate that if this is disproportionately an issue then a public awareness campaign probably has more staying power in our minds, and might give people a stronger indication when it comes up that they should go back and read the warnings. But even then, you probably have to be careful not to saturate people with them. If you see one for every case of a thing sometimes but not usually lethal, those might end up background noise too.

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