Gates and Bloomberg team up in fight against tobacco
Two of the world’s richest men, with bank balances that rival the gross domestic product of small countries, are joining forces to wage war against a common enemy — the tobacco industry.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, are making a combined investment today of $500 million (£250 million) to try to decrease smoking in countries such as China and India and to help to prevent a “tobacco epidemic” in Africa.
The billionaires, through their eponymous charities, propose to lobby governments in Asia, Africa and South America to increase taxes on cigarettes, implement smoking bans and raise knowledge of health risks.
Nearly five million people worldwide a year — almost 14,000 every day — die from tobacco-related illness, more than are killed by any other single agent. Unless urgent action is taken, they say, as many as one billion people — more than two thirds of these in the developing world — could die this century as a result of smoking.
A $7 million, five-year grant to the American Cancer Society (ACS), which has taken on a more global role recently, will go toward managing a health coalition called the African Tobacco Control Consortium. Piles of what global health organizations don’t want in Africa.
The World Health Organization started a new tobacco control effort in Africa with the help of a $10 million grant from the Gates Foundation late last year. Its goal is to prevent tobacco use from becoming as prevalent in Africa as it is in other parts of the world.
The association will work in 46 countries of Africa to reduce tobacco use by
helping execute policies such as advertising bans, tobacco tax increases, graphic
warning labels and promoting smoke free environments, in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world’s first public health treaty;
If tobacco use continues to grow at its current velocity, it will kill more than 8 million people a year in 20 years, and more than 80 percent of them will be in developing countries, WHO predicts.
In Asia, Chinese fans are watching the Olympics on TV, puffing on cigarettes in a smoke-filled bar. Suddenly, when the Chinese team scores, they crush out their cigarettes and jump up to cheer. “Love China,” says a message on the screen. “Increase patriotism even more. Love a smoke-free Olympics.”
That public-service advertisement was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, targeting TV viewers in China during the Olympics. It’s part of a new initiative to cut tobacco use in the country that’s home to 350 million smokers and more than a third of the world’s cigarette production.
While it was once common to see thick clouds of smoke in China’s trains, restaurants and even offices, the government has joined the effort to crack down on smoking.
“I think this is a magic time for people to get behind the anti-tobacco work,” Bill Gates said last month in launching the initiative. “It will be a tough fight and a long-term fight, but a very important one.”
Together the Gates Foundation and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s foundation have pledged $500 million around the world to reduce tobacco use, fighting a habit that kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
China has the biggest number of smokers in the world, and its annual production exceeds the next seven largest tobacco-producing nations combined.
In Beijing, a new government order went into effect May 1 that bans smoking in most indoor areas, such as schools, hospitals, movie theaters and gyms, as well as on public transportation. The directive was intended to ensure a “smoke-free Olympics” but will remain in effect after the Games are over.
The policy limits smoking in bars, restaurants, public parks, waiting rooms and hotels. Restaurants are required to set aside at least 50 percent of their space for nonsmokers. Smoking is banned in offices, and the creation of “smoke-free work units” is encouraged.
China doesn’t have a national law banning smoking in public places, but more than 150 local governments have instituted smoking bans. Many local bans passed in the 1990s are now being revised and strengthened.
How well the new policy is working in Beijing depends on where you go.
Chinese cigarettes come in decorative boxes, often with gold leaf and unique designs. What they lack are clear warnings about tobacco’s health risks. Packs carry only a small-print warning on the side saying, “Smoking harms health.”
That’s about to change. China joined the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global agreement among 157 countries, which requires China to have new health warnings on its packs by Jan. 1.
China’s plan for that remains weak, using a small, 6-point typeface on a background the same color as the rest of the package. Public-health advocates had pressed for larger text and a more obvious message on health risks, but they were overruled by China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
“We’re trying to tell people when they’re giving cigarettes, they’re giving a cancer-causing substance,” Lawrence said. Warnings on packages about smoking’s real risks “would do a lot to persuade people that it wasn’t such a beautiful gift.”
More television ads around the Olympics will bring that message home directly.
Another ad the Gates Foundation sponsored features a Chinese gymnast competing on the balance beam as a little girl and her parents watch at home.
By Mike Mansfield, Examiner
