Benzene Poisoning

I'll start by giving the link to the video I just watched:

http://www.upworthy.com/ever-heard-of-benzene-poisoning-me-neither-but-samsung-and-apple-have-1112?g=2&c=ufb3

In China, as well as elsewhere, I'm pretty sure, consumer electronics are produced in factories in which young people (think:  teenagers, very young adults) work 12+ hours per day for very little pay.  One of the occupational hazards is benzene poisoning, which appears to happen with great frequency.  Though the government denies the workers' claims, the one thing that these young people have in common is their workplace.  Not where they're from, not their genetics (although one might argue that asians are, racially, somehow more susceptible to benzene poisoning) are common.  The fact appears to be that in order to escape poverty, many young people are leaving the countryside to live to factory towns, not unlike the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  There, they find what work they can, and that often leads to abuse by corporations without a sense of responsibility to its workers.  Companies like Apple and Samsung apparently contract with these manufacturers to produce consumer electronics at the lowest price possible, which, unfortunately, often involves the use of industrial chemicals and solvents like benzene, which, when used without proper ventilation, attacks the human body and causes illness (in this case, cancer/leukemia).

Apple Computer, Inc.

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