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One word: lawyers.

They have some strange laws in California. I swear, every single building in that crazy state I've ever entered has one of these right by the door.

All of the Christmas lights we bought a few years ago had this same warning on them. All were made in China. I don't know if there's any correlation to be made there or not.

My guess is its due to lead in the solder, which is cheaper and easier to work with than non-lead based solders.

Funny, I recently unpacked a Toshiba port replicator and read the same little yellow notice slip. Ridiculous. It along with all of the other legally-mandated documentation about dangers of misusing electronics go right into the recycle bin at home. I'm not sure if I should be worried about lead content in power cords or not. By implication do all power cords contain lead? If not, why this one? And why not just put all sorts of noxious chemicals in power cords as long as you can just include a disclaimer?

WARNING: Handling the cord on this product will expose you to arsenic, asbestos, mercury, depleted uranium as well as some sticky stuff that we're not really sure about. Washing your hands won't help, but if it makes you feel better, go right ahead. And don't even think about saying that we didn't warn you.

Yes, I saw this warning on Nikon power cables when I bought a D70 a year ago. Freaked me out -- I handle power cables all the time! I imagine this is more important for kids than adults -- kids are disproportionately affected by heavy-metal poisoning.

I don't think it's about the solder. A quick Google on "lead power cable warning" turns this up:

http://bwcecom.belden.com/Sales/Quality/Prop65QA_NEMA.pdf

The intro sez it's about chemicals "found in the surface contact layer of covered wire and cable". For lead, the threshold is 0.03%, or 300 parts per million.

The paper is quite readable -- tho it only talks about what companies have to do to warn users, and nothing about the actual risks.

I only noticed these warning labels when I put up Christmas lights on the tree this year. (googling) Apparently PVC, which is probably what your cord is made from, commonly contains lead:

PVC has the special problem of forming HCl (Hydrochloric Acid) when it degrades, which causes a chain reaction which proceeds rapidly to complete loss of strength (and causes damage to manufacturing equipment). The stabilizers for PVC have thus mostly been metal salts, which could react with the HCl. These have included Lead, Cadmium, Barium, Calcium, Zinc, and organic Tin compounds.


Source: http://www.turnertoys.com/pvc9printable.htm

Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything has a great chapter entitled 'Getting the Lead Out' which goes into fascinating detail on the misadventures of commercial lead uses. Highly recommended reading.

Cheers,

maybe you have just started noticing these labels. The Prop 69 and similar warnings are all over California. Virtually every garage has a prop 69 warning since garages tend to attact cars which currently tend to bring CO, CO2, fuel, MTBEs. Fry's starting having these in their store IIRC about a year ago. They are so common that if there were a more dangerous than usual building, I am not sure I would notice it

yesterday i bought a computer mouse from the dollor store and a lable on it said that it had lead in it it was freaking me out if i touch in i might get cancer

Is lead dangerous in power cords, should we buy ones without lead?

I just got a new camera.I had to go and read the notices section on the user guide! It says, "handling the cord on this product will expose you to lead." How is this possible?

After seeing this warning on my Christmas tree this year I searched around for some answers. It sounds like lead is used in the PVC coating of all power cords. I'm in the IT business so I handle power cords all the time so this really was a shock to me. I've also found warnings to wear gloves when handling and to wash before eating after handling. CNN did a spot on this last year and found alarming high levels of lead on Christmas lights. I think it's scary but what to do, I still digesting the information.

I bought a $50 mushroom lamp yesterday from a toystore. Made in China. But I had to have it.
Same warning on that lamp (actually, with the addition of a CANCER warning).
I called IKEA - they guaranteed their lamp chords don't contain any lead. Maybe because IKEA sells nothing with PVC??

I also called Home Depot - the guy said he would return any item that says 'wash your hands after use'. He found this very suspicious.

Thanks for all your postings - they made me feel less crazy. Although I'm even more confused now.