Gates, Bloomberg In $500M Anti-Smoking Campaign

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates today announce that in their efforts to combat smoking and tobacco they donate $500 Million dollars in combined funds helping people to quit smoking and have healthier lifestyles.

Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death in the world today.

The foundation has joined with Mayor Bloomberg and his Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use to combat the global tobacco epidemic. Our combined investment of $500 million will help governments in developing countries implement proven policies to reduce tobacco use and save lives.

Progress is being made around the world.

Solutions to averting the tobacco epidemic in Africa and stemming it in places like India and China are within reach. Successful and cost-effective efforts to reduce tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke are increasing at an impressive pace around the world. Thirteen American states and eleven countries have gone 100 percent smoke free—Ireland, Uruguay, Panama, and Bhutan among them. Nigeria has implemented smoke-free laws and taken on big tobacco. In China, where one out of six cigarettes is smoked, smoking is temporarily banned in public places in all Olympic cities. With more support, these efforts will be sustained.

The good news is we know what it takes to save millions of lives, and where efforts exist, they are working," Bill Gates said.

Our Tobacco Action Plan

We will support and supplement the efforts of Mayor Bloomberg's Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which has committed an additional $250 million over four years to the $125 million he pledged in 2006.

Over the next two years, we will direct $24 million though the Bloomberg Initiative to speed adoption of the World Health Organization's MPOWER package of six key tobacco-control interventions. These funds also will be used to build economic evidence to support tobacco control and to educate the public about the harmful effects of tobacco.

In addition to the grant to Bloomberg, our strategy will focus on efforts that can help prevent the onset of the tobacco epidemic in Africa. Our first grant supports research on tobacco use and control there and will be used to inform future activities. We also plan to help build leadership and technical expertise in Africa and other countries and to support these countries' efforts to accelerate the implementation of effective, evidence-based strategies in tobacco control.

About The Tobacco Epidemic

Tobacco use causes almost one in every 10 deaths worldwide, 80 percent of them in poor countries.

Tobacco kills more than five million people per year. Tobacco-caused diseases eventually will kill up to half of the one billion people worldwide who are smoking today—unless they quit. Unless governments, private industry, and donors take urgent action to curb smoking, by 2020 tobacco will kill 10 million people every year, 80 percent of them in developing countries.

People in many developing countries don't know about smoking's health risks.

Tobacco causes widespread illness and death, but its risks receive inadequate attention, and public-education campaigns lack funding. Education already has benefited consumers in some countries. In Thailand, for example, 36 percent of people said that health warnings had often stopped them from a smoking a cigarette.

Smoking and poverty are linked in the developing world.
Tobacco's health risks for both smokers and those exposed to secondhand smoke raise the cost of health care. They also put families at risk of sliding into poverty due to poor health and premature death. Tobacco often burns up a significant part of a family's budget. Money spent on tobacco products cannot be spent on essentials like food.

The Solution Is Attainable

Working with partners like Mayor Bloomberg, our goal is to significantly reduce tobacco-caused disease, death, and poverty in the developing world.
We support the World Health Organization's MPOWER package, which outlines cost-effective measures to stop tobacco use. The six components of MPOWER are:

* Monitor tobacco use and the policies to prevent it

* Protect people from tobacco smoke

* Offer people help to quit tobacco use

* Warn about the dangers of tobacco

* Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship

* Raise taxes on tobacco

Source: By Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation

Please visit eMaxHealth to read more about Gates and Bloomberg Anti-Smoking Campaign.

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