I don’t know what I’m more surprised-but-not-actually-surprised by: the fact that the US is this far behind the rest of the world, or that the comments are packed full of American debating the merits of this ban as if they’re in some sort of vacuum. When it comes down to it, the typical born-and-bred American truly cant help but engage in some good old fashioned American exceptionalism.

This is great news, worldwide. Presumably the US was a major buyer of some of the asbestos products that were up-til-now legal to sell. As that market gets smaller, there’ll be less of a chance of asbestos-laden products fraudulently making their way into other markets with more same asbestos bans. As a resident of one of those countries, thank you for getting your act together, I guess.