The global scourge of smoking has two powerful new enemies. In July, billionaire philanthropists Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates announced they were contributing a total of $500 million to stop people in the developing world from smoking.
Bloomberg – head of a business media empire and the two-term mayor of New York City – is adding $250 million, spread over four years, to the $125 million his foundation had already committed to global antismoking efforts two years ago.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is sweetening the pot by earmarking another $125 million to the cause, to be spread over 5 years.
The money will be targeted to low and middle-income countries, such as China, India, Indonesia, Russia and Bangladesh, which have some of the highest smoking rates anywhere. The Bloomberg-Gates initiative far outstrips current total spending by governments and other sources on antismoking outreach in the developing world, which the World Health Organization pegs at a paltry $20 million per year.
"Together, we can make a clear, measurable difference – not just for ourselves and our generation but for the generations that come after us," Bloomberg told the Associated Press at the time of the announcement.
Bloomberg quit smoking 30 years ago and has been a crusader against tobacco use ever since, banning smoking in New York City's bars and restaurants in his first term as mayor, and initiating an aggressive antismoking campaign to keep New Yorkers away from cigarettes.
Gates' foundation is best known for spending billions on research and outreach to defeat infectious diseases in the developing world such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Earlier this year, Gates left his job as the head of Microsoft to devote himself full-time to his foundation. The commitment to antismoking efforts is a new direction for his foundation.
The challenges ahead are daunting. Over 1 billion people worldwide smoke, and smoking rates are soaring in the world's most populous countries, China and India. In China, tobacco remains a state-owned monopoly, and many developing countries gain revenue from taxes on tobacco products.
But Gates and Bloomberg said they are ready for the fight. Their half-billion dollar commitment will be spent on a multifaceted campaign called Mpower, which was first described by Bloomberg and the WHO's Dr. Margaret Chan in February. The campaign will push governments to boost tobacco taxes, ban smoking in public places, curb advertising to children and distribute nicotine patches to help smokers quit. Opinion leaders such as health officials, journalists and consumer advocates will be brought to the U.S. for workshops on antismoking strategies that work. Grants currently available from the campaign are listed at tobaccocontrolgrants.org.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies is also surveying people in the developing world to get a better understanding of tobacco use there.
The new campaign's partners include the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the WHO, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the foundation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Bloomberg remained cautiously upbeat as he joined Gates to announce the funding.
"I'm an optimist, but also a realist," he told The New York Times. "All of the money in the world will never eradicate tobacco. But this partnership underscores how much the tide is turning against this deadly epidemic."
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