Health News
Billionaires give 500 million dollars to anti-smoking campaign
Jul 23, 2008, 19:06 GMT
New York - Billionaires Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans on Wednesday to donate 500 million dollars to the worldwide campaign to stop people from smoking.
They announced the contribution at a news conference at the headquarters of The New York Times in New York, in support of the World Health Organization (WHO) campaign to end smoking.
WHO said tobacco could kill up to a billion people in the 21st century.
The 500 million dollars pledged by Gates, former chairman of Microsoft, and Bloomberg, founder of the Bloomberg Financial News, will be a big boost to WHO, which has spent 20 million dollars a year to support its multipronged campaign, known as Mpower, to end smoking.
Bloomberg and WHO director Margaret Chan joined forces earlier this year to end tobacco use. As mayor, Bloomberg has imposed high taxes on cigarettes in New York City to persuade smokers to kick the habit, which resulted in less smoking in the city's restaurants and public places.
The Times said the Bloomberg Foundation commits to give 250 million dollars over four years on top of the 125 million dollars he already announced two years ago. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will give 125 million dollars over five years.
Bloomberg and Chan announced plans in February to strengthen the worldwide anti-smoking campaign, with the mayor contributing 2 million dollars from his foundation to underwrite the WHO campaign's printing materials.
The WHO campaign has been asking governments to drastically raise cigarette taxes, ban smoking in public places and shut down advertisements that may affect children and start anti-smoking advertisement campaign.
The campaign has concentrated on five countries with large populations of smokers: China, India, Indonesia, Russia and Bangladesh.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
....soon parted.
Well, well, well. It wasn't enough that the anti-smoking lobbyists in the US have succeeded in creating a whole new class of citizens to abuse, to rob through taxation without representation, to discriminate against, all under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, but now two of the richest guys in America are going to import these same sins to the world. And for what? Vanity? So they might convince themselves at night when they can't sleep that they've done something for people everywhere besides take their money and make the lives of the poor even more difficult? Spare me.
Like there's not a host of problems here at home that could better utilize the money than two self-important rich people desperate for a cheap ego stroke.
Oh, yes, I'm sure that's what Jesus would do--make criminals of people around the world who smoke. Encourage governments far and wide to steal money through higher and higher taxes and then look for the earthly rewards in the eyes of those who obviously need some sort of second class to kick around in order to feel better about themselves. May you all be shown the same sort of mercy and toleration, even understanding, that you've shown to them. Oh, yes, let's do, let's meet on judgment day and see what God has to say about every one of you intolerant, holier than thou, narrow-hearted and -minded people who carelessly think you have the right to supplant God. May you get exactly what you given, times ten.
People read about this $500 million dollar contribution that will take place over a period of five years and think, 'Wow! Smoking's going to disappear!'
What they don't realize is just how much money has ALREADY been pumped into a campaign of social engineering that beggars anything done even under the most totalitarian regimes in history. According to the American Medical Association itself, the U.S. 'Tobacco Control' effort spent over 880 million dollars just in 2001. And that $880 million figure doesn't even cover Big Pharma money pushing their NicoGummyPatchy products through lobbying or the money spent on antismoking/fundraising ad by the Cancer/Heart/Lung 'charities.'
In the last ten years it's likely that well over ten billion dollars has been spent to demonize (Antismokers prefer the word 'denormalize') smokers, pressure/encourage people to quit, raise tobacco taxes, lobby for smoking bans, and make smoking less enjoyable, more difficult, and more expensive in every way possible. While I don't have the current figures at hand, I do have a report from the BRFSS figures from the CDC for the period 1990 (when taxes and bans were close to nonexistent) to 2002 (when both were VERY existent!)
Those figures show that the national rate in 1990 was 23%. And the national smoking rate 12 years later, in 2002, was 23%. *EXACTLY* the same!
The World Health Organization's total annual budget is about $1.5 billion. Think of what the World Health Organization could do with another $1.5 billion to save the millions of children dying of malaria, pneumonia, and even simple diarrhea every year if they had this money for those purposes rather than having it wasted in a 'War' that produces more hate than substance.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of 'Dissecting Antismokers' Brains'
Gates and his generation introduced me to tobbacco, got me hooked on it through massive television, magazine and billboard ads.
And now want to force me to quit. Come to my house and make me quit Billy boy. I dare ya.
Tobbacco may be my downfall, but Gate's ego will be his.
Gates and Bloomberg are politically-correct phonies who have nothing better to do than lecture their economic inferiors about their bad habits. As previous commenters have noted, it's a waste. Public Service Announcements about smoking are stupid, boring and full of lies: that's why kids don't pay attention to them. If people want to smoke, let them. The Algorean nanny-staters make me sicker than lung cancer.
page: 1
BenJul 23rd, 2008 - 19:16:59
What a waste of money on addicts when it could have been used for better medical purposes. These people didn't smoke because they were forced into it, and there has been enough info out there about the dangers for many years!
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