Michael Bloomberg to Receive Humanitarian Award from The Foundation Fighting Blindness at New York Dinner and Gala

Foundation Fighting Blindness
Monday, 4 June 2001

(New York) June 4, 2001-Almost 1,000 people will be on hand at the Waldorf-Astoria on the evening of June 7th, 2001 to honor Michael Bloomberg as he receives The Foundation Fighting Blindness' Humanitarian Award.

Bloomberg is being honored for his global commitment to philanthropic endeavors particularly in the areas of medical research and public health.

Bloomberg is the founder and CEO of Bloomberg, a company that revolutionized the way Wall Street provides financial information by creating a service that has now almost 160,000 subscribers. He entered the media business in 1990 with the debut of Bloomberg News, the financial news service that now consists of over 1,200 reporters and editors in 80 bureaus worldwide.

"Michael has been a longstanding supporter of medical research," said Robert Gray, Chief Executive Officer of The Foundation Fighting Blindness. "His belief in the power of philanthropy to improve the human condition is evident in his generous spirit and compassionate nature. We are delighted to honor him with this year's Humanitarian Award."

The 16th annual Humanitarian Awards black-tie dinner will also feature entertainment by The Four Tops, The Temptations and Mary Wilson & The Supremes.

The co-chairs of this year's event are Daniel Bergstein, Partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky, & Walker LLP; Alan Landis, Chairman of The Landis Group; Edward Goldberg, Executive Vice President of Merrill Lynch; Howard Hirsch, President, Forest Electric Corp; Stephen Siegel, Chairman and CEO of Insignia/ESG; and Stuart Subotnik, Exeutive Vice President of Metromedia Companies.

Proceeds from The Humanitarian Award Dinner will benefit The Foundation Fighting Blindness, an organization dedicated to finding the treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardt disease and Usher syndrome. More than 6 million Americans suffer from retinal degenerative diseases. Another 15 million have pre-symptomatic signs of these diseases that could lead to vision loss.

The Foundation Fighting Blindness is the largest source of non-governmental funding for retinal degenerative disease research in the world. The Foundation funds 155 research projects at 55 prominent institutions around the world. The National Health Council consistently rates The Foundation Fighting Blindness #1 for the percentage of program dollars spent on research.

For more information, or to contact Foundation Fighting Blindness, see their website at: www.blindness.org