Two US billionaires, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, donated $375 million for anti-smoking campaigns all over the world. A part of the money is planned to be used for struggle against smoking in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
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| Naive billionaires Gates and Bloomberg believe their millions may cut smoking in China and Russia |
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"Bill and I want to highlight the enormity of this problem and catalyze a global movement of governments and civil society to stop the tobacco epidemic," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Bill Gates believes that methods to prevent millions of smoking-related deaths are well-known all over the world.
"Tobacco-caused diseases have emerged as one of the greatest health challenges facing developing countries. The good news is, we know what it takes to save millions of lives, and where efforts exist, they are working,” Microsoft founder said.
Bloomberg and Gates, whose joint fortunes total over $70 billion agreed to join their efforts in the implementation of several programs to cut smoking. They stipulate activities to increase taxes on tobacco products, ban their advertising, protect people against second-hand smoking, etc.
New York mayor, a former smoker, founded an anti-smoking foundation in 2005 and invested $125 million in it. Bloomberg intends to wire $250 million more during the forthcoming four years. Gates invested $24 million in the foundation.
Research has generated evidence that secondhand smoke causes the same problems as direct smoking, including lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and lung ailments such as emphysema, bronchitis and asthma. Specifically, meta-analyses show that lifelong non-smokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20–30 percent greater risk of lung cancer than non-smokers who live with non-smokers. Non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased lung cancer risk of 16–19 percent.
A study issued in 2002 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization concluded that non-smokers are exposed to the same carcinogens as active smokers. Sidestream smoke contains 69 known carcinogens, particularly benzopyrene and other polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and radioactive decay products, such as polonium 210. Several well-established carcinogens have been shown by the tobacco companies' own research to be present at higher concentrations in secondhand smoke than in mainstream smoke.
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