Occuaptional Hygiene in developing economies

I found this presentation on Slideshare

Although I'm not so complacent to think that control of asbestos is perfect here in the UK, I think it would be unlikely to find anything quite as blatant as the situation shown on these slides.

I guess that this example illustrates the difference in standards between "developed" and "developing" economies. Some commentators argue that the health, safety standards required by legislation are driving work away from Western Europe and the US to countries such as Turkey, Eastern Europe, India, the Far East, Latin America and that we should lower standards over here. But this argument has been used many times in the past - only with different countries being cited (in the past it was Spain, Portugal, Greece etc). There will always be somewhere where standards and wages are lower. The standards adopted in the developed countries are helping to protect workers' health - and uncontrolled use of hazardous substances, such as the example in the slides, needs to be addressed in the developing world, and will be in due course as workers there become more organised.

In order to improve standards, professional expertise will be needed, including occupational hygiene. Although these skills could be provided by hygienists based in Europe, the USA and Australia, this is not a solution in the long term. The best approach is to develop the profession in the countries where occupational hygiene skills are required. The International Modules being developed in partnership by a number of occupational hygiene organisations, including BOHS and the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists should, hopefully provide a foundation for this.