So many warning labels, so little to be worried about.

CALIFORNIA is the warning-label state. Since voters approved Proposition 65, which mandates warnings when people are exposed to known carcinogens or chemicals that cause birth defects, to live in California is to be warned.

When you fill your gas tank, there's a warning. When you go to a department store or a restaurant, there are warnings. Ditto the grocery store, where there are warnings for fruits and vegetables, nuts and fish.

Now, if Attorney General Bill Lockyer has his way, you can expect warning labels for fast-food French fries and potato chips.

If he succeeds, the Legislature might as well post a billboard at the border that reads: Eating in California can be hazardous to your health.

You'd think Lockyer could find a better use of taxpayer money than to spend it to warn the public about something any high school student knows. French fries are bad for you.

But never passing a chance for a good press release, Lockyer filed a lawsuit against a number of fast-food chains and junk-food producers because their French fries and potato chips contain trace amounts of acrylamide--a chemical found in asparagus and olives, a natural byproduct of cooking certain starchy foods.

While Lockyer is alarmed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration isn't sure acrylamide is bad for you. In March, the FDA issued a press release that stated, "Acrylamide can cause cancer in laboratory animals at high doses, although it is not clear whether it causes cancer in humans at the much lower levels found in food."

Ed Weil of the Attorney General's Office thinks the FDA is wrong. He cites U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits on acceptable acrylamide, which is used to treat drinking water, as lifelong exposure can lead to "damage to the nervous system, paralysis, cancer." Weil notes that the Environmental Protection Agency limits acceptable acrylamide amounts to 0.5 micrograms per liter of water, while the government found 40 micrograms in the average serving of chips or fries.

Weil agrees there are too many warning signs--although he argued that grocery stores, for example, post warning signs mainly to stop nuisance lawsuits.

Lockyer is pushing the acrylamide issue, Weil said, because it is the government's job to dispense information and let consumers decide if they care about a possible carcinogen. As he put it, acrylamide falls into "an in-between category. Depending on how you feel about it, you might want to eat it or you might not want to eat it."

Problem is, there are too many in-betweens--some 750 other chemicals, according to Weil--on the Proposition 65 list. Consumers see so many warnings they can't take them seriously. Even Lockyer, In a press release announcing the suit, said, "I am not telling people to stop eating potato chips or French fries."

If people shouldn't stop eating these foods, why post a warning? Michele Corash, an attorney who represents companies being sued by Lockyer, said there are so many warnings "we are immunizing the public to signs."

I see the Proposition 65 signs as nagging. What else would you call a warning against doing something you do every day, like eating, or parking, or shopping?

There are times when consumers need to know there is a danger. But consumers don't notice such warnings. Corash noted that sometimes "we need a way to warn consumers when there's a real hazard. Now we can't any more. You have to say: 'We really mean it this time.'"

Debra J. Saunders writes for the San Francisco Chronicle.