Billionaires On A Smoking Mission

sky.com     Jul 24, 2008            

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their millions in a bid to cut the number of smokers in developing countries like China and India. Cigarettes easily get into the hands of some Chinese children. The billionaires have pledged more than £187m to help anti-smoking groups fight what they called a global tobacco epidemic. A world without tobacco, Mr Bloomberg said, is "a world in which people live longer and have happier lives". Currently, one in four adults in the world is a smoker - or about one billion people approximately. Mr Bloomberg and Mr Gates warned that one billion people will die from tobacco-related diseases during this century unless something is done to reduce smoking. "Smoking is an epidemic that can be stopped, and we want more people to get involved," Mr Gates said at... [read full story]                    


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