Gates, Bloomberg money thwarting a nasty export

Just read this in the news - these foundations are giving a total of $500 million to stop the growth of smoking in poorer countries in the world.

I wish it were money being spent on research, and being spent in the US, but there is at least one place where it may directly benefit us. Virtually every time I get into a taxi, I am assaulted by the second hand smoke. The drivers, mostly immigrants, bring the habit right back here with them.

One of the points the article makes is that convincing third world governments to take action against smoking is difficult because those countries get revenue from tobacco taxes. I think we are still dealing with that problem here!

Maybe next time, Gates and Bloomberg will decide to spend their money at home!

http://www.timesleader.com/business/Gates__Bloomberg_money_thwarting_a_nast y_export_08-03-2008.html

Complete article follows:

LUNG CANCER IS a big and growing export all over the world. Every year, tobacco companies ship out millions of cases. Now two giants of philanthropy are doing something to fight back. Applause and emulation are well deserved.

Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg are giving a total of $500 million to stop the growth of smoking in poorer countries around the world.

As smoking declines in the United States and other industrialized nations, tobacco companies have struck it rich in poorer, less developed countries. Call it exploitation: feeding off people with few diversions and just enough pocket money for some smokes. Lung-cancer deaths are edging up all over the developing world. Its share of new lung cancer cases worldwide was 31 percent in 1980; it is now 58 percent.

Here’s the vise-grip: In these countries, there is little research on lung cancer rates, weak educational efforts, poor health care. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that only $20 million total goes to such efforts in poor and middle-tier countries.

That’s where Bloomberg ($375 million) and Gates ($125 million) are putting their money. It will fund mPower, an international effort combining the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the WHO and other organizations. Their aim: antismoking education efforts; quit-smoking programs; and lobbying to press governments to ban public smoking, raise tobacco taxes and punish sales to children. It’s a tough battle, since many countries get lots of revenue from tobacco taxes.

Bloomberg and Gates want to keep the push on against smoking. They also are fine examples of the “new philanthropy,” in which the world’s richest people direct their opulence toward needful human problems. “Nanny-state” stuff? No: a kind of private enterprise, private citizens doing good with their cash. As they should. Where there is selfishness, export sharing. Where there is sickness, export health.