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Black Coffee Blues

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If a new court decision in California is enforced, baristas will have to place another label on cups next to customers’ names—a cancer warning.

Last week, a Los Angeles Superior Court proposed a decision against coffee makers in a lawsuit that has been brewing in courts for years. The Council for Education and Research on Toxics claim that by selling coffee with trace amounts of acrylamide—a chemical classified as a carcinogen, but one that occurs naturally from the roasting process—retailers are exposing consumers to a health hazard. This would ultimately put sellers in violation of California Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, which requires businesses that expose customers to hundreds of chemicals to post warning labels notifying them as such.

In his proposed decision, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Elihu Berle wrote:

“Since defendants failed to prove that coffee confers any human health benefits, defendants have failed to satisfy their burden of proving that sound considerations of public health support an alternate risk level for acrylamide in coffee.”

Should the decision go into effect, businesses that fail to provide the warning notice will be subject to a fine of up to $2,500 a day for each violation.

This news has California’s coffee drinkers, sellers and roasters boiling. After all, people have been imbibing the dark nectar of the gods for hundreds of years and very few, if any, causal connections have been made between it and cancer.

On March 29, the National Coffee Association (NCA) released a statement in response to the ruling and dispelled the notion that coffee can be cancerous:

The industry is currently considering all of its options, including potential appeals and further legal actions. Cancer warning labels on coffee would be misleading. The U.S. government’s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that coffee does not cause cancer. Study after study has provided evidence of the health benefits of drinking coffee, including longevity—coffee drinkers live longer.

Retailers have some options in reaction to the developments. Last year, Bloomberg reported that the “few coffee sellers that have settled rather than keep fighting,” were hopeful that “people in California are so accustomed to seeing the signage that they will tune it out.” In October 2017, Starbucks and some other retailers preemptively placed warnings signs in stores—which may serve as a hedge against fines for millions of cups of coffee sold over several years.

Sellers could create cups specially marked for California sales, which may disrupt its supply chain and increase costs. They could also opt not to sell in California at all, which is unlikely, since the state’s economy is booming with coffee suppliers. With nearly 75% of California’s population being older than age 18, millions of dollars in per-cup sales may hang in the balance.

The decision is not final, however. In the NCA’s statement, president and CEO William “Bill” Murray said: “Coffee has been shown, over and over again, to be a healthy beverage. This lawsuit has made a mockery of Prop 65, has confused consumers, and does nothing to improve public health.”

For further insight into the unintended consequences of Proposition 65 and other well-intentioned regulations visit here.

The Planet’s Plastic Garbage Problem

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A giant island composed of plastic waste thrice the size of France is floating in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) contains 1.

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8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing 80,000 metric tons. It is located between Hawaii and California, which has the distinction of being the world’s largest accumulation zone for ocean plastics because it just happens to be where multiple sea currents meet and where the (mostly) plastic mass churns.

The GPGP was on Risk Management Monitor’s radar back in 2014 (and prior to that, as well) and even then, it was already considered one of the costliest man-made disasters in history. But new developments from the Ocean Cleanup Foundation (OCF) confirmed that the buoyant junk heap exceeds earlier projections of its size and scope. According to the OCF, the newly released estimates are four to 16 times higher than previously expected for the GPGP’s overall size. 92% of the mass is represented by larger objects; while only 8% of the mass is contained in microplastics, defined as pieces smaller than a quarter-inch in size.

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“We were surprised by the amount of large plastic objects we encountered,” said Dr. Julia Reisser, chief scientist of the expeditions. “We used to think most of the debris consists of small fragments, but this new analysis shines a new light on the scope of the debris.”

The OCF has removal plans in motion and scientists said this situation also highlights the need for stronger recycling efforts.

Boyan Slat, founder of the OCF and co-author of the study, elaborated on the relevance of the findings for his organization’s cleanup plans: “To be able to solve a problem, we believe it is essential to first understand it. These results provide us with key data to develop and test our cleanup technology, but it also underlines the urgency of dealing with the plastic pollution problem. Since the results indicate that the amount of hazardous microplastics is set to increase more than tenfold if left to fragment, the time to start is now.”

OCF, which is privately funded, plans to remove the plastic heap using an autonomous floating system (composed of high-density polyethylene, a durable and recyclable material) designed to capture small plastic particles less than a half-inch and as large as tens of yards wide. Cleanup is expected to begin in the next six months and OCF models indicate that half of the GPGP can be removed by 2023. According to its website:

By removing the plastic while most of it is still large, we prevent it from breaking down into dangerous microplastics. Combining the cleanup with source reduction on land paves the road towards a plastic-free ocean in 2050.

Unfortunately, such a huge environmental risk is not limited to the Pacific.

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Last month, a study released in Frontiers in Marine Science found lots of microplastics in the fish and marine life of the North Atlantic Ocean:

Using forensic methods, this study assessed microplastic frequency of occurrence in mesopelagic fish gut contents from a warm-core eddy in the Northwest Atlantic. We detected a significantly higher occurrence rate of 73% in contrast to previous studies reporting occurrence rates of 11% in the North Atlantic and 9% and 35% in the North Pacific Gyre regions.

In a recent USA Today article, one Frontiers study author reminded that just because these fish may be out of our physical reach, our waste knows no bounds.

“These seemingly remote fishes located thousands of kilometers (miles) from land and 600 meters (2,000 feet) down in our ocean are not isolated from our pollution,” said study co-author Tom Doyle, a marine biologist at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

5 Tips for Choosing the Right TPA

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While many risk managers have had excellent experience with their third party administrators (TPAs), others have been disappointed. Unfortunately, when the match isn’t right, the risk manager may be left with poor claim outcomes, higher claims and insurance costs, and difficulty identifying issues and making corrections.

The key to successful relationships often hinges on the risk manager’s ability to set  priorities and evaluate prospective TPAs and other claim service providers accordingly, based on objective, outcome-based metrics. Here are five tips for choosing TPA and claim service providers that are best suited to meet your needs:

  1. Look beyond household names. Too often, risk managers narrow their options based on name recognition.
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    While this might appear to be a safe choice, it may not yield the best fit. And that can lead to higher costs, poor outcomes, and ineffective relationships. Even with name-brand providers, mismatches might exist between the risk professional’s priorities and the service provider’s capabilities and operating cultures of the two organizations, available industry expertise, and resources such as risk management information systems.

  2. Articulate your needs and priorities. An effective relationship starts with knowing the specific requirements of your enterprise and setting relevant priorities. Are you in an industry with unique risks? Do you have a backlog of complex and legacy claims? Is your geographic footprint local, regional or national? Do you have significant operations in states with challenging regulatory frameworks? Do you need a provider with a strong reputation for closing difficult claims or managing litigation? How valuable are the TPA’s data management resources or risk management information system to your program? What’s your claims volume? Conduct a careful assessment of your needs, establish priorities, and create a request for proposal and related scorecard for evaluating candidates.
  3. Check how closely the TPA’s capabilities and resources match your needs. Areas you might examine include: staffing and account management, geographic locations, adjuster case load, pricing structure, reserving practices, quality assurance and training, MMSEA (Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007) reporting, litigation and subrogation management, managed care, data handling and reporting capabilities, and transition planning.
  4. As practical, insist on outcome-based metrics and use them to compare candidates. When you break it down, the fees charged by claim service providers represent only a small percentage of claim costs. Whenever possible, try to obtain metrics on actual claim outcomes rather than process. Analyze time and cost of various types of claim closures and percentages over time that might apply to your organization, check average claim duration and costs, and examine these results by state, your industry sector and other relevant breakouts.
  5. Know which adjusters will be assigned to your program. They’re the gatekeepers who will make a big difference in your results. So, be sure you know who the adjusters will be on your account. If your largest claims typically demand experienced adjusters with proven track records make sure that’s what you’ll be getting. Find out about their adjuster turnover rates. While some attrition might be expected, you want to avoid situations where you’re constantly re-educating adjusters to get up to speed—especially on complex and legacy claims. Try to ascertain whether their adjusters fit your culture, claims handling approach and priorities.
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Once you make your TPA selection, evaluate their performance on a regular basis. Track the TPA’s results against what you anticipated based on the metrics they provided in response to your request for proposal (RFP).

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By adhering to an objective selection process, including making sure the TPA’s team and capabilities are aligned with your priorities, you’ll be in the best position to get the results you want.

U.S. Dept. of Interior Celebrates National Puppy Day

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Today, March 23 is National Puppy Day, celebrated by organizations everywhere that benefit from the smarts and loyalty of our canine friends. Dogs assist humans in a number of situations including bomb-sniffing dogs on the battlefield, TSA dogs used in airports to locate contraband and as reported in Risk Management, arson dogs are employed to determine the cause of mysterious fires for both fire and police departments. Seeing eye dogs and service dogs for veterans have important jobs as well.

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It turns out that the Dept. of the Interior also has good reason to celebrate our four-legged companions. Dogs do a number of jobs to help the Dept. of the Interior achieve its goals and accomplish its mission of “keeping Indian country, public lands, visitors and wildlife safe.”

Detector dogs work in airports, seaports, mail centers and other critical transportation points. According to the Department: “When people try to smuggle animals or illegal products (such as snakes, sea turtles or rhino horn), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wildlife Detector dogs sniff out this hidden contraband. The agency’s seven detector dogs work in entry ports at Anchorage, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Puerto Rico, increasing the Service’s inspection capabilities and helping surpass what a human team could do by themselves.”

Dogs also pull sleds in Denali National Park and are trained to stop the spread of invasive species and diseases in many areas. Avian botulism, often deadly to birds has become a treat in the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii, the Department reports.

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Because the disease is easily spread, the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are training dogs to track down dead birds infected by avian botulism. These dead birds are then removed before the disease can infect other birds and waterfowl.

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According to the Department of the Interior:

At national wildlife refuges, K-9 units ensure the safety of people and other animals. USFWS K-9s have tracked down Alzheimer patients who have gotten lost, sniffed out a hidden rifle used to illegally shoot animals and worked with local law enforcement to track down an armed robbery suspect hiding in water. With a sense of smell and hearing far superior to a human’s, these dogs have proven to be a vital part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission.

Dogs are welcome in many national parks, but their owners are asked to follow the BARK rules:

B – Bag your waste
A – Always be on a leash
R – Respect Wildlife
K – Know where you can go