Billionaires cough up some dough to fight smoking

They've tackled malaria and AIDS, but now two billionaire philanthropists are taking on another developing world health-scourge: smoking. Former Microsoft Chair Bill Gates and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just pledged $500 million to the fight against tobacco use, most of which will go to developing countries. Check out their discussion with Charlie Rose here: Gates and Bloomberg have a tough battle ahead of them. In India, a country of 120 million smokers, the death toll from tobacco use could cause more than 1 million deaths a year by 2010. Most of these deaths are likely to result from cardiovascular diseases, tuberculosis, and especially cancer, which is contracted at much higher rates for smokers of bidi (popular hand-rolled cigarettes sold in Southeast Asia) than for smokers of regular cigarettes. Even China,... [read full story]