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Apple Industrial Accident Ping!
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Posted on 10/27/2010 3:54:46 AM PDT by Swordmaker
The workers say they were using the chemical n-hexane to glue and polish Apple products. (AFP: Emmanuel Dunand)
Workers in southern China, who say they were assembling Apple laptops and iPhones, have become seriously ill after using a dangerous chemical.
The Number Five People's Hospital in Suzhou has been treating workers who breathed in vapours from the chemical n-hexane.
According to the workers, the chemical was being used in the production of Apple products and has left them unable to walk.
The ABC's Foreign Correspondent snuck into the Number Five People's Hospital to visit a group of women who were working in a very small, badly ventilated factory.
They say they were using n-hexane to glue and polish the logos on Apple products - at least they assumed they were not fakes.
One had kept some of the logos they were using to prove that they were working on Apple products and showed them to the ABC.
After breathing in the chemical's vapours, they became dizzy and numb and eventually they could not walk.
"At first the symptoms were pretty obvious. My hands were numb. I could hardly walk or run," one woman told the ABC.
"I think they knew it was poisonous to human bodies but if they had used another chemical our output would not have increased," another woman said.
"By using n-hexane, it was much more efficient".
The women have now been in hospital for more than half a year.
The workers' boss, Zhong Jianxiang, was not available to be interviewed.
Apple, meanwhile, would not confirm it had sourced products from companies based in China, but said it had tightened its requirements regarding workplace safety at its suppliers.
'It's very painful'
Workers in much bigger factories have also reported similar stories.
The large Taiwanese-owned operation Wintek has 20,000 employees, and its main client is Apple.
"Our company mainly produces the touch screens for mobile phones. Our main client is Apple," one worker said.
Wintek has also been using n-hexane and, after breathing in the chemical, more than 60 workers had to be hospitalised.
"I am back at work but my symptoms are still with me," one worker said.
"My legs still hurt. This will accompany me for the rest of my life. It's very painful."
Wintek has paid its workers' hospital bills and said it had removed n-hexane from its production lines.
It also said that if "affected people are given proper treatment they can successfully recover from n-hexane exposure".
Can anyone think of a "glued" on logo???
The interesting line here is "... at least they assumed they were not fakes."
Hmmmmm
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Ok. But where is my Macbook Air I ordered last week? Only now does order say “Prepared for shipment.” /s
Upon doing some research, I found this is based on some actual exposures that did occur... but it was not from gluing on logos. There apparently were some exposures to N-Hexane... but they occurred in August of 2009 when a Wintek plant manager arbitrarily changed a cleaning protocol used to clean touch-screen glass from alcohol to N-Hexane without authorization because it dried a bit faster... why this is being re-hashed now more than a year later is curious. It was first exposed and reported on and investigated in February.
I am sure this is true of any company that makes electronics in China. Why is Apple being singled out?
Glues/adhesives cab be very toxic/volatile compounds.
so based upon that, this story us very believable.
Will this comment incite the legions of fr flame monkeys on me? perhaps but so what.
Because it is the #1 largest tech company in the world and the #2 largest Market Cap company in the world exceeded only by Exxon Mobile... makes it a tempting target. Apple has stringent Green manufacturing standards too... so this violates those published and advertised standards. Makes it look like it's hypocritical.
Lime most everything( except plutonium ) the poison is the dose, not the chemical. In short, it is how much you get. If you were using alcohol cloths all day, which would be unpleasant, if not nauseating. I would imagine that just a fan blowing in clean air, and away alcohol air. You would absorb some through your hands too..
Anyway, if under the same conditions you went to hexine, all day, every day, you’d get sick/damaged.
Further if the hexine evaporates faster, that means you have to use more of it, as it is drying right on the wipes, which means you have more of it in the air.
They make screens for different phones but still the headline says when making iPhones, implying only iPhones.
$$$$$$$$
“The Number Five People’s Hospital in Suzhou Was this the model for oBAMA care?”
Yeah, that is one of their showcase hospitals there. Why, they even have aspirin!
"Glued-On" would not be a genuine Apple. I suspect they were working in one of the factories making knock-offs - like these:
Reading that article - though VERY similar to the real iPhone 4 (and even has all the "correct" graphics on the back...), the supposedly "64GB" model - was 64MB!
China is the great copy-cat. They take every single remotely popular US (or other nation) -designed product, import it (if they don't already have factories doing the production of the real ones... like most consumer electronics now), and make the closest copy they can make with their own parts... sometimes they get pretty close, other times...well - see some of the batter and charger issues for a variety of electronics...
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