Michael Bloomberg has poured $1 billion into anti-tobacco groups shaping White House policy

Former New York mayor and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has poured over a billion dollars into anti-tobacco groups that have pushed the Biden administration to ban menthol cigarettes, a move that critics fear will disproportionately affect black communities in the United States.

Bloomberg Philanthropies boasts on its website that it has invested $1.1 billion in the fight against tobacco use over the past decade. Two of the groups that have received a share of that funding — the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, or CTFK, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — have seeded officials into the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, the subagency behind the Biden administration's proposal in April to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.