Apple says no evidence of Mac Pro benzene emissions

The Mac Pro might smell funny, but Apple says there's no evidence that smell is harmful.

(Credit: Apple)

Claims that Apple's Mac Pros emit benzene are being denied by the company.

A French newspaper called Libération.fr published the results of a study by a researcher at France's INERIS claiming that odors stemming from certain Mac Pros are the result of benzene emissions. Complaints have surfaced in the past about some sort of weird odor coming from Mac Pros, but it was thought the odor was related to small strips of plastic or material around the heatsink on the processor, depending on where you looked.

The study claims that the benzene fumes won't kill you immediately or anything, but could cause health problems such as leukemia over time. Apple, however, told Macworld it has found no evidence of benzene emissions from the Mac Pro, although it continues to look into the issue.

[Galaxy5]

Good God. You'll inhale more benzene from burned fuel as your airplane taxis around the tarmac waiting to take off than you could from a circuit board or computer.

[DumbMacUser]

No stupid, that is Kerosene, or Jet Fuel. You might get a wif of it in the few parts per million when your plane is taxiing...nothing like sitting beside your poorly engineered Mac for 8 hours a day breathing Benzene day after day. I can see it is already having an effect...or maybe your stupidity is partially inherited since you paid $3000 for a Mac in the first place?

[DumbMacUser]

They knew about it before the junky obsolete-out-of-the-box MacPro was even released to the market.

Everything apple does is based on fraud, deception, and a desperate need to get rich quick and follow the example of Bill Gates, who beat them in their own game years ago.

[Dalkorian]

Wow, that brain cell of yours must be lonely.

[DumbMacUser]

No stupid, that is Kerosene, or Jet Fuel. You might get a wif of it in the few parts per million when your plane is taxiing...nothing like sitting beside your poorly engineered Mac for 8 hours a day breathing Benzene day after day. I can see it is already having an effect...or maybe your stupidity is partially inherited since you paid $3000 for a Mac in the first place?

[murbo]

poorly engineered? say whatever you want to macs, but they are not poorly engineered

oh and i've seen $8000 pc's that cant even get close to a $3000 mac..
go do your word processing and web surfing on a celeron, you obviously are not even worth a celeron chip

[LewTheDu]

I'd like to see this "$8000 PC" "that can't even get close to a $3000 mac." please, enlighten me.

[Francky B]

Actually DumbMacUser, had you just googled the word benzene and fuel, it would have taken you about 5 seconds to see that Galaxy5 was right... Then again, with a user name like DumbMacUser, I guess not much could be expected. :p (Benzene can be a bi-product of fuel and oil refinement).

I seriously doubt that a small piece of plastic in my Mac Pro is going to kill me... Might not be healthy I admit, but I'm not enclosed in a seal room with the darn thing, so I'm not to worried, lol

[jonathanlambert]

Look folks, this is Benzene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene

It's bad. It gives you cancer. This is a concern.

[AppleSuxLeo]

I heard they emit large quantities of MELAMINE to falsely increase the protein content , and to cause acute renal failure of Mac users.

[severian]

And the Mac Pro cases are manufactured by a subsidiary of Microsoft...

[dude7895]

Somehow Apple will try to blame this on Microsoft.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Someone poured benzene on AAPL today...OUCH !

[askgees]

Galaxy5, Your right, you may breathe in small amounts of Benzene when taxing to the runway however long term exposure (inhaling fumes 8 -10 hrs. a day) is not quite the same. It's a known fact that Benzene is a carcinogen and causes cancer in humans. Sitting next to an Mac Pro day after day puts you in a much higher risk group than the occasional traveler sitting on the tarmac for 20 -30 min. Benzene is used in plastics, and as the article stated the plastic pieces holding the processor and the heat sink together is where the problem exists. Feel free to say what you will but when you?re diagnosed with AML and have a year or two to live we'll see how you feel about that small piece of plastic.
Good luck.

severian
Who makes the case is irrelevant. It's the mother board and processor manufacture. So much for your Microsoft comment. But I wouldn't expect any thing less from a Mac/Apple user. I know it sucks being number 2.

[solitare_pax]

Well, Apple is to blame if its hardware emits fumes - they do have pretty good quality control for their products. Perhaps it's that fresh styrofoam smell from the packing materials?

Of course, Microsoft, doesn't make PC hardware, so theoretically, you could run Windows on a PC made from asbestos, with a case covered in arsenic, and emitting high levels of radiation from components salvaged from a leaky nuke plant. That's just how flexible Windows is.