Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg Team Up For New Anti-Smoking Effort

According to this latest article in the NY Times, the World Health Organization estimates that tobacco will kill about a billion people in the 21^st century, which is 10 times as many people that it killed in the 20^th century. Most of the deaths are expected to come from poor countries like Bangladesh and middle-income countries like Russia. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with the Bloomberg Foundation to spend a total of $500 million to stop people around the world from smoking.

Mr. Bloomberg mentions:

“All the money in the world will never eradicate tobacco, but this partnership underscores how much the tide is turning against this deadly epidemic.”

The campaign, named Mpower, will urge governments to prohibit smoking in public places, raise tobacco taxes, start anti-smoking ad campaigns, outlaw tobacco advertising to children, and offer nicotine patches in order to help people quit. Other countries like India and China who have begun anti-smoking ad campaigns in the past have are experiencing an increasing number of people who have quit smoking. The $500 million will be allocated over a time span of 5 years.

Safety Checklist to be Circulated

BBC News reports that a list compiled by the World Health Organization designed to cut the risk of surgical complications will be issued to doctors world-wide. This list is being compiled due to a Lancet study that found that safety measures across hospitals are commonly overlooked.

The Harvard School of Public Health has aided WHO in drawing up this list and its main aim is to reduce the following complications during surgery: preventable infections, preventable complication from bleeding, and safety in anesthesia. The list includes six very basic steps in surgical care including verification of the patient, ensuring that equipment is not neglected and left inside the patient, and administering an antibiotic before making an incision which reduces the risk of infection by at least 50%.

Worldwide, about one million people die a year following major surgery, so hopefully this list can serve an intervention to help prevent common mistakes made in surgical care.