Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg to fund anti-smoking campaign

Bill Gates and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York announced Wednesday that they would spend $500 million to stop people around the world from smoking. Tobacco could kill as many as one billion people in the 21st century, most of them in poor and middle-income countries, according to World Health Organization estimates. In an effort to cut that number, Bloomberg's foundation plans to commit $250 million over four years on top of $125 million he announced two years ago. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is allocating $125 million over five years. Those sums far outstrip current spending of about $20 million a year on anti-smoking campaigns in poor and middle-income countries, according to a recent WHO. report. The $500 million would be spent on a multipronged campaign nicknamed Mpower that Bloomberg and Dr. Margaret Chan,... [read full story]