Contextualising the policy decision to ban asbestos

As of July, 2019, more than 100 countries have not totally banned the mining, importing, exporting, trading, and use of asbestos.1 In these countries—including current major producers or users of asbestos such as Russia, Kazakhstan, China, India, and Indonesia—asbestos-related diseases will persist for decades longer than in other countries that have implemented an asbestos ban. Indeed, countries that banned asbestos a quarter of a century ago are still contributing substantially to the worldwide toll of more than 100 000 asbestos-related deaths per year.