In an attempt to raise awareness on smoking-related problems
and to encourage smoking cessation, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Mayor
Michael Bloomberg joined forces announcing a $500 million investment to reduce
tobacco use in developing countries like India
and Indonesia
where smoking is prevalent.
More than 5 million people are killed by tobacco annually
according to the World Health Organization’s statistics. Moreover, the health
organization estimates that tobacco will kill up to a billion people in the
21st century, 10 times as many as it killed in the 20th.
On Wednesday, Mayor Bloomberg, a former a smoker and now an
important supporter of tobacco eradication, said that his foundation plans to
donate $250 million over four years on top of a $125 million gift he donated
two years ago for trying to stop so many people for smoking, thus reducing the
number of deaths resulted from tobacco-related diseases. Over the recent years,
Mayor Bloomberg has donated hundreds of millions. He is also rumored to have anonymously
donated millions annually to the Carnegie Corporation, which in turn
distributed the money to hundreds of New
York City organizations.
In addition to Mayor Bloomberg’s donation, Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation is donating $125 million over five years for the same purpose.
This is not the first time Gates Foundation is donating money for noble
purposes. Since 1999, it has spent more than $2 billion on AIDS programs and
about $1.2 billion on malaria.
“The reality is that all the money in the world will never
eradicate tobacco use and that this problem is too big for any one person or
organization to solve. It’s going to take a sustained commitment by government,
community organizations and the entire global health community, including those
who fund it,” Mayor Bloomberg said at the Times
Center in New York, according to the New York Times.
The $500 million campaign, dubbed Mpower, coordinates
efforts by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Health
Organization, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health, the foundation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The campaign will plead for prohibiting smoking in public
places, raising tobacco taxes and promoting ads against smoking by children.
Moreover, there will be antismoking advertising campaigns and people will be
offered patches or other things to help them quit.
“Together we can make a clear, measurable difference – not
just for ourselves and our generation but for the generations that come after
us,” Mayor Bloomberg said.
These efforts will be headed on five low- and middle-income countries
where most of the world’s smokers live: China,
Bangladesh, Russia, Indonesia,
and India.
China
alone has about 350 million smokers, a third of the world’s total. Nearly 1
million people die from tobacco related disease there annually, according to
the World Health Organization. China
is also a major tobacco producer not only a consumer. Efforts to prevent
smoking and to minimize the production of tobacco will be difficult there, as
the government owns cigarettes manufacturing companies.
“Smoking is an epidemic that can be stopped, and we want more
people to get involved,” Gates said as quoted by Reuters.
He continued by reminding that cigarettes bans in US bars
and restaurants have helped US smoking rates decrease. The US example was
followed by other countries as well. Ireland,
France, Italy and Turkey number among these
countries.