Sick touchscreen workers look to Apple for help

The Apple touch screen workers in China who became seriously ill when their factory illegally swapped a cheaper toxic chemical into the production process are taking their concerns straight to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Reuters reports.
Global Post met several of the sickened workers last year, when they were still hospitalized with numb hands and feet after their employer, a factory contracted by Apple and other companies but owned by Taiwan’s Wintek Corp., started using n-hexane in making touch screens for Apple's wildly popular gadgets. Now the workers are out of health-care options and looking for help.
Apple at first repeatedly refused to comment on the issue, but just recently its its 2011 Supplier Responsibility Report acknowledged that 137 workers were hospitalized with symptoms of n-hexane poisoning. Yet the workers' fate remains unclear. Studies have shown that n-hexane exposure can have long-term health effects.The world’s largest tech company, like all others, uses a widely fragmented supply chain making it difficult to say exactly what products are made where, and also gives primarily responsibility for health and safety of workers to local factory bosses.