Cancer cluster killing Chinese workers at iPhone 6 factory

THERE could be a darker side to Apple’s new gadgets. Five workers at one of the world’s biggest iPhone factories are dead, and eight others gravely ill.

FILE-In this Wednesday, May 26, 2010, file photo, staff members work on the production line at the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen, China. Foxconn, the company that makes Apple's iPhones suspended production at a factory in China on Monday, Sept. 24, 2012, after a brawl by as many as 2,000 employees at a dormitory injured 40 people. The fight, the cause of which was under investigation, erupted Sunday night at a privately managed dormitory near a Foxconn Technology Group factory in the northern city of Taiyuan, the company and Chinese police said.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

THERE could be a darker sider to Apple’s new iPhone 6 with a cancer cluster killing workers at the main production factory in China.

Thirteen workers at the factory in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, have been diagnosed with leukemia and five have died as a result.

The cancer which has affected workers ranging from 19 to 24, first appeared in 2010.

Speaking to China Topix, Suki Chung, executive director of Labour Action China, said she believed the 13 known cases in Shenzhen were “the tip of the iceberg” and that many more workers had died from the disease.

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The cause...Chemicals benzene and n-hexane are said to be the cause of the cancers however Foxconn said those chemicals aren’t used anymore. Picture: AFP

She also claimed when workers were diagnosed with the cancer, they were fired, denied medical coverage, and forced to pay for their own costly treaments, which are out of reach for most.

Two chemicals used in the assembly lines of the iPhone and iPad, benzene and n-hexane, are said to be the cause of the cancer.

However Foxconn, the Taiwan-based owner of the factory, which makes products for several companies, said those chemicals aren’t used anymore and there is no link between the cancer spike and its work environment.

In a statement, a Foxconn representative said, “We can also confirm that the employees who were diagnosed with leukaemia held different positions and job functions while working at our company across different product lines and customers, as the majority of our campuses in China serve multiple customers and manufacture a variety of products — there is no commonality, including links with any chemical agents, associated with the work they were doing.”

Apple says it is taking the allegations “very seriously” and is looking into the issue at the Shenzhen factory, where about two million iPhones a week are made by an army of 230,000 migrant workers from across China.