Bill Gates: Use Vaccines To Lower Population

Microsoft chief echoes John P. Holdren’s call for massive sterilization program, wants CO2 tax

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, March 1, 2010

Microsoft founder Bill Gates told a recent TED conference, an organization which is sponsored by one of the largest toxic waste polluters on the planet, that vaccines need to be used to reduce world population figures in order to solve global warming and lower CO2 emissions.

Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”

Quite how an improvement in health care and vaccines that supposedly save lives would lead to a lowering in global population is an oxymoron, unless Gates is referring to vaccines that sterilize people, which is precisely the same method advocated in White House science advisor John P. Holdren’s 1977 textbook Ecoscience, which calls for a dictatorial “planetary regime” to enforce draconian measures of population reduction via all manner of oppressive techniques, including sterilization.

“I’m not sure what the nothing-to-see-here explanation is for Bill Gates’ theory that “new vaccines” can help lower the population of the world,” points out the Cryptogon blog, “But I thought about the incidents from the 1990s where the World Health Organization was providing a “tetanus vaccine” to poor girls and women (and just poor girls and women) that contained human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). For those who don’t want to delve into that, in short, it was a World Health Organization experiment; a test of a vaccine against pregnancy.”

After presenting an equation that included the number of people on the planet and CO2 emissions, Gates said, “Probably one of these numbers is going to get pretty near to zero.”

Later in the presentation, Gates mentions picking a vaccine, “which is something I love,” that would be used to lower global CO2 emissions.

He also advocates pouring more money into the global warming scam by way of the United Nations, as well as a “CO2 tax” and cap and trade, while making it clear that the developed world would have to reduce its living standards by cutting back on essential services that generate CO2.

Gates said that a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions was necessary by 2020, a 50 per cent reduction by 2050, and ultimately that there had to be zero CO2 emissions globally, a measure that would completely reverse hundreds of years of technological progress and return man to the agrarian age, all in the name of preventing an alleged miniscule temperature increase that has been proven to be based on fraudulent data models in light of the Climategate scandal.

One of Gates’ proposals for reducing CO2 emissions is the use of biofuels, which as a new report highlights, has resulted in millions of acres of forests being destroyed, which ultimately means a net increase in CO2 emissions from biofuels when compared to fossil fuels, not to mention the massive devastation caused to wildlife.

As we have documented, a CO2 reduction of 50-80 per cent, not to mention 100 per cent, would inflict a new great depression in the United States, reducing GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.

Additionally, the “post-industrial revolution” being proposed by Gates and his ilk would lead to massive job losses.

The implementation of so-called “green jobs” in other countries has devastated economies and cost millions of jobs. As the Seattle Times reported back in June, Spain’s staggering unemployment rate of over 18 per cent was partly down to massive job losses as a result of attempts to replace existing industry with wind farms and other forms of alternative energy.

In a so-called “green economy,” “Each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital,” states the report.

The fact that Gates would be so open in his call to use vaccines to lower global population (without a word as to the human rights considerations), probably has a lot to do with the audience attending his speech.

The TED organization admits that it is elitist, “in a good way,” and charges a whopping $6,000 dollars membership fee which must be paid by conference attendees. TED also charges nearly $1,000 just for its live conference web stream. The organization’s sponsors include IBM and military-industrial complex kingpin General Electric, which has a notorious history of environmental misdeeds, being ranked fourth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with more than 4.4 million pounds per year (2,000 Tonnes) of toxic chemicals released into the air. GE is also a major contributor to the toxic waste problem, rendering its sponsorship of an organization that claims to be seeking solutions to environmental problems completely hypocritical.

Watch Gates’ speech below.

Fury as EU approves GM potato

Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans

By Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Independent.co.uk

BASF’s genetically modified Amflora potato, which has just been approved by the European Commission, contains genes that are resistant to antibiotics

The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was claimed last night.

German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a gene that could resist antibiotics – useful in the fight against illnesses such as tuberculosis.

Farms in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic may plant the potato for industrial use, with part of the tuber fed to cattle, according to BASF, which fought a 13-year battle to win approval for Amflora. But other EU member states, including Italy and Austria and anti-GM campaigners angrily attacked the move, claiming it could result in a health disaster.

During the regulatory tussle over the potato, the EU’s pharmaceutical regulator had expressed concern about its potential to interfere with the efficacy of antibiotics on infections that develop multiple resistance to other antibiotics, a growing problem in human and veterinary medicine. Amflora contains a gene that produces an enzyme which generally confers resistance to several antibiotics, including kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin, and gentamicin.

The antibiotics could become “extremely important” to treat otherwise multi-resistant infections and tuberculosis, the European Medicines Authority (EMA) warned. Drug resistance is part of the explanation for the resurgence of TB, which infects eight million people worldwide every year.

“In the absence of an effective therapy, infectious Multiple Drug Resistant TB patients will continue to spread the disease, producing new infections with MDR-TB strains,” an EMA spokesman said. “Until we introduce a new drug with demonstrated activity against MDR strains, this aspect of the TB epidemic could explode at an exponential level.”

After member states become deadlocked on the potato’s approval, the European Commission approved it for use in industries such as paper production, saying it would save energy, water and chemicals. Once the starch has been removed, the skins can be fed to animals, whose meat would not have to be labelled as GM.

The EC, whose decision was backed by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa), said there was no good reason for withholding approval. Health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli said: “Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies.”

“Stringent” controls would ensure none of the tubers were left in the ground, ensuring altered genes did not escape into the environment. Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato – which can cause human diseases – may develop resistance to antibiotics.

Some member states were furious. “Not only are we against this decision, but we want to underscore that we will not allow the questioning of member states’ sovereignty on this matter,” said Italy’s Agriculture Minister, Luca Zaia. Austria said it would ban cultivation of the potato within its borders, while France said it would ask an expert panel for further research.

Campaigners accused Brussels of failing to follow the precautionary principle. Friends of the Earth’s Heike Moldenhauer said: “The commissioner whose job is to protect consumers has, in one of his first decisions, ignored public opinion and safety concerns to please the world’s biggest chemical company.”

Campaigners suspect Brussels is in favour of the widespread planting of GM crops despite opposition by some member states. Yesterday it also announced its intention to allow states more leeway in backing GM organisms.

The Video The USA Army Doesn’t Want You To See

Three Google employees convicted in Italian court for user-uploaded content

In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that’s where our involvement would normally end.

But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees —David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (who left the company in 2008). The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video’s existence until after it was removed.

Nevertheless, a judge in Milan today convicted 3 of the 4 defendants — David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes — for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. All 4 were found not guilty of criminal defamation. In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question. Throughout this long process, they have displayed admirable grace and fortitude. It is outrageous that they have been subjected to a trial at all.

But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

These are important points of principle, which is why we and our employees will vigorously appeal this decision.

The robot arms race continues…

Boeing airborne laser destroys missile

Robot UT-mu2 tech demo

RT piece

The Sharp Dressed Man Who Aided Mutallab Onto Flight 253 Was a U.S. Government Agent

Kurt Haskell
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, January 30, 2010

Please note that in the article that follows, I am not claiming that the U.S. Government knew Mutallab had a bomb or intended to hurt anyone on Flight 253 when the U.S. Government let him board.

	Umar Farouk Abulutallab.

Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of the following Detroit News article:

http://detnews.com/article/20100127/NATION/1270405/Terror-suspect-kept-visa-to-avoid-tipping-off-larger-investigation

Let me quote from the article:

“Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would’ve foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

“Revocation action would’ve disclosed what they were doing,” Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, “rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort.”‘

Now it all becomes apparent. Let me detail everything we know about the “Sharp Dressed Man” (SDM).

1. While being held in Customs on Christmas Day, I first told the story of the SDM.

2. My story has never changed.

3. The FBI visited my office on December 29, 2009, and showed me a series of approximately 10 photographs. None were of the SDM. I asked the FBI if they brought the Amsterdam security video to help me identify the SDM, but they acted as though my request was ridiculous. The FBI asked me what accent the SDM spoke in and I indicated that he had an American accent similar to my own. I further indicated that he wore a tan suit without a tie, was Indian looking, around age 50, 6′0″ tall and 250-260 lbs. I further indicated that I did not believe that he was an airline employee and that he was not on our flight.

4. During the first week of January, 2010, Dutch Military Police and the FBI indicated that over “200 Hours” of Amsterdam airport security video had been reviewed and it “Shows Nothing”.

5. The mainstream media picked up the “Shows nothing” story, which slanders my story. After visiting my office twice for a flight 253 special, Dateline NBC and Chris Hanson indicated that my story was “Unsubstantiated rumor dispelled as myth” and our story did not air during the tv special.

6. On January 2, 2010, I receive a call from a flight 253 passenger who indicated to me that it may be in my best interest to stop talking publicly about the SDM because he believes I am “wrong” in what I saw. He did not make any claim that he saw the SDM boarding gate incident at all. This call was made out of the blue after he made a “revelation” of this event on January 1, 2010. I later discover that this caller has ties to the U.S. Government.

7. On January 20, 2009, current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Michael E. Leiter, made a startling admission. Leiter indicated that: “I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”

8. On January 22, 2010, CongressDaily reported that intelligence officials “have acknowledged the government knowingly allows foreigners whose names are on terrorist watch lists to enter the country in order to track their movement and activities.”

CongressDaily also reported, citing an unnamed “intelligence official” that Michael E. Leiter’s statement on January 20, 2010, reflected government policy and told the publication, “in certain situations it’s to our advantage to be able to track individuals who might be on a terrorist watch list because you can learn something from their activities and their contacts.”

9. On Janury 22, 2009, ABC News published an article that shoed a change of position in the government’s official story. Please see the following blog post for more information:

http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/initially-discounted.html

The U.S. government provided no explanation for the reason my story was initially discounted.

10. The SDM could not be from Al Qaeda. When speaking at the counter in Amsterdam, the SDM said the following “He is from Sudan, we do this all the time”. Who is “we”? If it is Al Qaeda, you surely don’t make such a statement to an airposrt security official.

11. The SDM could not be from airport security. The SDM did not dress in any secuirty uniform and did not appear to have any security badge. The SDM did not speak with a Dutch accent. The SDM dressed in a suit coat and pants. If the SDM was a higher up security official, he would not have to convince the ticket agent to let Mutallab on the plane without a valid passport. Instead, he would just order her to do it.

12. Could the SDM have been a U.S. Government official? He dressed in a suit and not a security uniform. Check. He indicated we do this all the time. Could “we” be the U.S. Government? Check. He spoke Enlish with an American accent. Check. Would he need to convice the ticket agent that this was a normal procedure to allow boarding without a passport? Check. Would he have the ability to obtain such clearance? Check. Could he enter this security area even though he wasn’t a passenger? Check. Would the ticket agent likely refer this request to a manager? Check. Would the U.S. Government not want this information public and try to hide it? Check.

13. The Amsterdam security video has not been released. A much more minor airport security violation occurred at the Newark New Jersay airport several days after the flight 253 incident. That video was released shortly thereafter.

14. Senators Levin and Stabenow, as well as Congressman Dingle, all refuse to discuss the matter with me.

With the information we already knew and the admission from the above referenced Detroit News article, we have evidence and claims made by government officials that the U.S. Government wanted Mutallab to proceed into the U.S. in order to obtain information on other terrorists involved with him. Once we take this statement and add it to my eyewitness account of a “Sharp Dressed Man” escorting Mutallab through the boarding process and allowing him to baord without a valid passport we can make the connection that the “Sharp Dressed Man” was a U.S. Government offical/agent.

The reasoning behind the following events now becomes very clear:

1. The reason Mutallab got through security despite the numerous warnings for months before our flight.

2. The reason why there have been so many lies from the U.S. Governemnt attempting to discredit my eyewitness account.

3. The reason why the Amsterdam airport security video is being hidden from the public.

4. The reason why the government is proposing a “Failed to Connect the Dots” account of the failure. The truth is too damning.

5. The reason why Mr. Wolf of the Obama administration indicated on the Keith Olberman Show that the White House was investigating a possible “intentional act” from within the U.S. Government as the reason for the Christmas Day attack.

6. The explanation for the cameraman and why he hasn’t been identified (Obviously, he was another U.S. Government agent) whose job was to film Mutallab for some governmental purpose.

7. The reason for the lax security after landing, which can be attributed to foreknowledge of the possible suspects involved.

8. The reason for the failure to search or secure the plane and passengers after landing, which can also be attributed to foreknowledge of the possible suspects involved.

9. The corporate media’s attempt to bury my eyewitness account.

10. Carl Levin’s, Debbie Stabenow’s and John Dingle’s intentional avoidance of my story and failure to return my calls/emails.

11. Janet Naploitano’s statement that “The System Worked”. From her point of view it probably did as this WAS PART OF THE SYSTEM!

Haiti: Obama’s Katrina

Patrick Martin
Global Research, January 28, 2010

Troops under United Nations command have opened fire on crowds of hungry Haitians seeking food, an ominous sign of impending confrontation between the people of the earthquake-wracked country and the armed forces dispatched there under the auspices of the imperialist powers.

On Monday, Uruguayan troops, part of the UN peacekeeping force deployed here since 2004, fired rubber bullets at people who crowded around food trucks, eventually pulling out and leaving sacks of rice to be fought over.

The next day, Brazilian troops proceeded more aggressively, using pepper spray and tear gas to hold off a crowd seeking food at a tent camp on the grounds of the devastated presidential palace. People ran from the spray coughing and with their eyes streaming.

Two tanks were brought up to menace the crowds when they began to reform, although Fernando Soares, a Brazilian army colonel, told the press: “They’re not violent, just desperate. They just want to eat.”

One soldier loaded a shotgun as the crowd watched, but did not fire. “They treat us like animals, they beat us, but we are hungry people,” one Haitian, Muller Bellegarde, told an American reporter.

The World Food Program (WFP) was delivering 107 cubic tons of rice, oil and beans to the palace camp, enough to feed 20,000 people for two weeks. As the trucks rolled up, thousands came out of their tents and began lining up, but the queues soon became disorderly as it became clear that there was not enough food for all who needed it. Another man told Reuters, “We are too many. Two trucks are not enough for us. They will fight, and the soldiers will shoot and fire gas.”

Violence also broke out in the seaside town of Jacmel, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, after initially peaceful protests over the scarcity of tents for earthquake survivors.

Force was used as well by Haitian police at a food-distribution site in Cite Soleil, the largest and most impoverished section of the capital city. Police swung sticks and clubs to drive back the crowd.

While Haitians seeking food and scavenging in the rubble have been portrayed as “looters” by the media, and targeted for repression by both foreign troops and Haitian police, it was so-called looters who found a man buried in the rubble of a building on Rue de Miracle in downtown Port-au-Prince Tuesday. They brought US soldiers with the necessary equipment to pull the man, Rico Dibrivell, 35, out alive. He had a broken leg and severe dehydration, but said he had been trapped for 12 days rather than 14, falling victim to an aftershock rather than the original 7.0 quake.

On Wednesday, a teenage girl was pulled alive and apparently unhurt, though severely dehydrated, from beneath another smashed building. Coming 15 days after the main tremor, this marks the longest known survival of an earthquake victim in modern history. US and other rescue efforts were called off at the weekend.

The total number of American military personnel in Haiti, including those on ships just offshore, rose to 15,400 by Tuesday. One third of these are soldiers on the ground in and around Port-au-Prince, with the bulk of them from the 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit that specializes in combat, not logistical support.

The heavy-handed US military presence has generated considerable criticism. Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia boycotted a donors’ conference in Montreal to protest the US occupation of the country.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro wrote in Granma, the country’s official newspaper, that the focus on US military deployment had blocked entry of doctors and medical supplies. “Send doctors, not soldiers,” he wrote. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared, “The U.S. government is taking advantage of a humanitarian tragedy to militarily take over Haiti.”

These sentiments were expressed, not just by regimes long at odds with Washington, but by officials of longtime US allies France and Italy. A French cabinet official, Alain Joyandet, said in a radio interview January 19 that the role of the U.S. in Haiti should be clarified. “It’s about helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti.”

The top Italian official dispatched to Haiti, Guido Bertolaso, the civil protection minister, said Monday that the US intervention had been “pathetic…. It’s a truly powerful show of force, but it’s completely out of touch with reality. They don’t have close rapport with the territory and they certainly don’t have a rapport with international organizations and aid groups.”

Clearly referring to the photo-op appearance by former US President Bill Clinton, who passed through the island and briefly unloaded water bottles at the airport, he said, “Unfortunately there’s this need to make a bella figura in front of the television cameras rather than focusing on underneath the debris…. Some individuals were putting on a vanity show for the television cameras instead of rolling up their sleeves.”

Such comments clearly stung, as shown by the comments by Clinton’s wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speaking to a group of State Department employees, she declared, “I deeply resent those who attack our country, the generosity of our people and the leadership of our president in trying to respond to historically disastrous conditions after the earthquake. Some of the international press either misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued what was a civilian and military response, both of them necessary in order to be able to deliver aid to the Haitians who desperately needed it.”

Haitian President Réné Preval, who has been virtually invisible to the people of his country for the past two weeks, emerged to denounce suggestions that the occupation of his country by foreign troops was a threat to its sovereignty. At a press conference with Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, he rebuffed a question about the occupation, saying, “We are talking about people suffering and you are talking about ideology.”

A French reporter asked why US troops were controlling flights into the Port-au-Prince airport. Preval replied: “You need to run the airport, you need technical help and they offered it to us. I really can’t understand why the need for that is so difficult to accept.”

Preval also announced that Haitian legislative elections, previously scheduled for February 28, would be postponed indefinitely.

The major initiative of Preval’s government is a program to relocate 500,000 people from Port-au-Prince to villages outside the capital region, but there have been few takers among those living in the rubble. A reporter for the French news agency AFP visited Croix des Bouquets, one of the relocation sites, and described it as “a vast, gravel wasteland with just a few people hanging about hoping for work.”

Meanwhile an extraordinary denunciation of the Obama administration’s conduct in Haiti was published in the Wall Street Journal, issued by three New York City doctors, Soumitra R. Eachempati, incoming president of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and Dean Lorich and David Helfet, orthopedic surgeons and colleagues of Dr. Eachempati at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

Their statement appeared under the headline, “Haiti: Obama’s Katrina, Many post-quake deaths could have been prevented.” The three doctors, who were among the first to reach Haiti after the quake, wrote that the delays imposed by the US military on relief groups entering the county “proved tragic. Upon our arrival at the Haiti Community Hospital we found scores of patients with pus dripping out of open fractures and crush injuries. Some wounds were already infested with maggots. Approximately one-third of the victims were children. Most of the patients already had life-threatening infections, and all were dehydrated. Many had been waiting in the hospital compound for days without water, antibiotics or even pain medicine. The hospital smelled of infected, rotting limbs.”

They continued: “The U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no support from any branch of the US government, including the State Department. As we ran out of various supplies we had no means to acquire more…. Later, as we were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of US and international soldiers standing around aimlessly.”

BPA Study Points To Intestine Damage

Newsinferno

Bisphenol a—BPA—is making news again today. This time, for yet another adverse health effect linked to the estrogenic plastic hardener. Now, according to MLIve.com, emerging research has linked the chemical to intestinal problems.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences Journal and revealed the hormone mimicker does, in fact, cause harm to intestines, said MLive.com. MLive.com noted that intestines are the first organ in contact with the chemical following ingestion of BPA.

In laboratory testing, when rats were exposed to the chemical at doses 10 times smaller that what is currently believed to be safe for humans, the rats experienced intestinal lining damage. A team at the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Toulouse, France, conducted research said MLive.com, citing the Agence France-Presse (AFP). The damage, said MLive.com, is called “poor intestinal permeability” or “leaky gut syndrome,” a disorder that causes difficulty in the body with the absorption of water and nutrients and enables bacteria and other dangerous matter to enter the body. Of note, baby rats exposed to BPA in utero and when feeding showed higher risks of developing inflammation of the intestines when older. The disorders can also wreak havoc with the immune system, according to EMaxHealth.

Recently, another study conducted by the Yale School of Medicine, found that “nonhuman primates” exposed to BPA levels deemed safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) experienced “interference with brain cell connections,” that appeared to be BPA-associated, said Daily Finance.

BPA was developed in the 1930s as an estrogenic mimicker and appears to cause significant disruption on the body’s endocrine system. In urine tests, BPA is found in the overwhelming majority of Americans, more than 93 percent and, significantly, the chemical is found in 90 percent of all newborns. Given that BPA has been connected to increased risks of brain, reproductive, cardiac, and immune system diseases and disorders; problems with liver function testing; interruptions in chemotherapy treatment; and links with serious health problems, this is a serious issue.

Studies have overwhelmingly found BPA to have negative effects at doses lower than current FDA standards; retention in the body longer than was previously believed; leeching into liquids being held in containers regardless of the containers’ temperature; and longer lasting damage, which some feel can be passed to future generations. Recent reports link high levels of exposure to BPA to erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in males.

Laws are in place or coming into effect in a variety of states and counties in the United States in which the sale of certain products containing the polycarbonate has been banned, for instance, baby bottles, food containers, and sippy cups. Canada was the first country to announce plans to ban BPA, calling it a toxin; some retailers and manufacturers have announced plans to stop making products containing the chemical.

Most recently, a BPA ban in sippy cups and baby bottles came into effect in the state of Minnesota. Four other states are looking at a ban, said Daily Finance previously; two bills are seeking a national ban. According to Daily Finance, Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a House bill and two democratic senators—Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York proposed a Senate bill. Also, in addition to Canada, the European Union has implemented a complete ban on BPA.