Jun 14 2011
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Robin Li, CEO of the Chinese search engine company Baidu Inc., on Saturday announced the formation of a global alliance for public health with its first initiative focused on smoking cessation, Bloomberg reports (6/11).
"Focusing on the harmful effects of exposure to others' smoke, the initiative will aim to help smokers quit and encourage nonsmokers to ask people not to smoke around them," the Wall Street Journal writes. "At a news briefing the two billionaires donned green T-shirts reading "Say no to forced smoking" in Chinese. The Microsoft founder won a burst of applause by slowly reciting the slogan, repeating the words after Mr. Li," the newspaper reports.
Gates said the partnership between his foundation and Baidu is "open-ended" and could result in more health initiatives (Fletcher, 6/11).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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Late-life smoking cessation can significantly extend life expectancy