New York Mayor Bloomberg donates $220 million to anti-smoking efforts worldwide
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a former smoker turned anti-smoking activist, is contributing another $220-million to fight tobacco use worldwide.
The pledge brings Mr. Bloomberg鈥檚 total commitment to the anti-smoking cause to more than $600 million, according to Bloomberg Philanthropies. In 2006, he a plan to give $125 million over two years to a coalition of groups, including the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Two years later, he another $250 million, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined him with a commitment of $125 million.
The new money will be spent over four years and will focus on low- and middle-income countries 鈥� where, the World Health Organization reports, nearly 80 percent of the world鈥檚 smokers live.
Mr. Bloomberg has taken a bold approach to fighting tobacco, pushing for efforts to raise taxes on cigarettes and even helping Uruguay mount a legal defense against Philip Morris International, which sued over the country鈥檚 anti-smoking laws.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a miracle,鈥� says Gregory Connolly, a professor of public health at Harvard University. 鈥淢ost philanthropies are reluctant to take on large corporations.鈥�
Says Nick Guroff, communications director at Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group that receives Bloomberg money: 鈥淚n tobacco control, Bloomberg has really shifted the field in ways that Gates has shifted the field of global health.鈥�
Public health is one of five grantmaking priorities of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also makes grants that help groups working in the arts and education, as well as those that protect the environment and spur government innovation.
Last year, The Chronicle Mr. Bloomberg as the country鈥檚 fifth most-generous philanthropist.
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