Macopinion

The Road Warrior Mailbag - June 8, 2009

MCS and Macbooks
Laptops And MCS
PowerBook 2400c Video Slideshow

MCS and Macbooks

From Andrew

Hey Charles,

I just finished reading your article about MCS. I have serious problems in that area also although they chemical off-gassing triggers an allergic reaction in my eyes leading to the feeling that they are on fire. The doctors can see the allergic reaction and note it down as being obvious and severe, but when I tell them that is 100% certainly caused by chemical off-gassing, they tend to try to suggest it is caused by some kind of seasonal natural element. Of course this is not true as there is almost nothing in nature that I have any kind of reaction to (I can walk through a forest with thousands of smells and have no problem at all). The reaction is always very easy to link to some kind of product and goes away when I remove the product from the house.

Anyway, I was thinking of getting a Macbook and was wondering what kind of experience you had with the new aluminium ones? It is funny because it often comes down to the manufacturer as to what kind of affect will occur. I bought a Panasonic plasma last year and it had zero affect on my sensitivity. It is too difficult to analyse which products will and won’t cause problems as it can sometimes just be that one manufacturer coats their product in some kind of fire-retardant that I don’t get along with and another manufacturer doesn’t. I wonder if each person reacts differently to different chemicals or if we are all reacting to the same set of chemicals in different ways? Many times there doesn’t even need to be a smell and I get major problems. I bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner and for the first 3 months, even with it just sitting in the cupboard, it absolutely destroyed my eyes despite there being no detectable smell. Then, suddenly, the problem disappeared as I guess the chemicals finally off-gassed enough.

Oh well, it bloody sucks. I really don’t think it would be that difficult to manufacture products that were friendly to the indoor air quality but companies don’t really care about small groups of people. Oh yeah, I have to buy a new car soon, that is going to be fun *sigh*

Thanks for writing the article.

Andrew

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Hi Andrew;

First, good luck with the car-hunting. I have had to abloutely dismiss any thought of buying a new vehicle, or a lot of other things new. I find that it takes about five years here in Nova Scotia, Canada, for the plastics in car interiors to gas off to an extent that I can use them eithout wearing an activatede charcoal respirator, and even the gas mask isn't adequate for some vehicles when they are brand new.

Non-cognizance on the part of medical professionals is pretty much par for the course as well. Most of the physicians in this part of the world who take MCS seriously are ones who are afflicted themselves.

Of course, even as a medical specialty environmental illness a challenge because the irritant/symptom/individual combinations are virtually infinite and typically ideosyncratic — addressing your "I wonder if each person reacts differently to different chemicals or if we are all reacting to the same set of chemicals in different ways?" question.

MCS isn't really, strictly speaking allergy in the classic sense in most instances, but rather a cluster of hypersensitivities, although the general pattern of adverse reactions to particular substances is a parallel with allergy. Or so I've been told.

As to the MacBook, as with new cars, I've long since given up anticipating that I'm going to be able to tolerate sharing ari space in close proximity with new computers — laptop or desktop. The last ones I was able to do that with were the new PowerBook 5300 I bought in 1996, which never caused me any difficulty, and a WallStreet sales demo I had for several months in 1998 — the latter on of the original series that was built in Cork, Ireland. The positive experience I had with that unit convinced me to order one of the second series "PDQ" PowerBook G3s, but unfortunately Apple had shifted production to Quanta in Taiwan, and the chemical constituency of either the plastic enclosure, some of the internal components, or both had changed. It smelled distinctly different from the Irish-built model, and I soon discovered that it made me quiite ill sitting near it or even being in the same room with it. For the first two and a half years I owned and used that computer, it had to be either inside an externally force-vented isolation case or I had to wear a respirator. It did eventually gas off, and I had no fiurther problems with it, which has been the pattern with every iBook, PowerBook and MacBook I've owned for the past decade.

The ones with the metal housings seem not to to much different from the older polycarbonate skinned units in this context. My 17" PowerBook G4 was not noticibly better than my G3 iBook when new. Both finally gassed off, and I was/am able to use them comfortably in literal hands-on laptop mode, but it took over two years in both cases. I would say that the aluminum MacBook might be a bit less of an off-gasser than the previous two. It's hard for me to judge in terms of odour because I can't really smell any of them, I don't have a very acute sense of smell any more, but my wife and others tell me they do or at least did stink, to a diminishing degree as they age. I did try using the MacBook sans positive ventilation or breathing filtration when it arrived, but quickly banished it to the isolation case after I began reacting. I expect that like the others, it will be a while before it gasses off. Since I'm using it mainly as a desktop workstation, that's not a problem for now, although the whole thing gets very tiresome, as I don't need to tell you.

I agree that it should be possible to manufacture products that would be at least less pronlematical for the chemically hypersensitive. As I notes, the old PowerBook 5300 was benign right out of the box, but then again it ran pretty cool. The nature of plastics pretty much makes off-gassing inevitable, and adding fire-retardant chemicals to the cocktail (a major element in automobile interior and upholstered household furniture off-gassing as well) just makes it more fun.

Good luck!
Charles

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RE: MCS and Macbooks

From Andrew;

Thanks for the thorough reply Charles. I guess I will just have to try and play the return policy game if things don’t work out for me. Yeah it is probably a hypersensitivity rather than an allergy, but the symptoms appear the same on the outside. Anti-allergy medication does not work, which supports that idea. I may have to go the second-hand car route if things don’t work out.

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Hi Andrew,

Yes, in most cases MCS reactions to environmental chemicals are do not involve histamine or Immunoglobulin E type antibodies.

Strictly speaking, allergy is one of four forms of hypersensitivity and is called type I (or immediate) hypersensitivity ( the other three are Cytotoxic, antibody-dependent, Immune complex disease, abd Delayed-type hypersensitivity) and involves cell-mediated immune memory response, antibody-independent characterized by excessive activation of certain white blood cells called mast cells and basophils by IgE, resulting in an extreme inflammatory response that manifests in symptoms like eczema, hives, hay fever, asthma, food allergies, and extreme reactions to the venom of stinging insects such as wasps and bees.

MCS is something different and is not recognised as an organic, chemical-caused illness by the American Medical Association, or as an established organic disease by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. OTOH, in Germany multiple chemical sensitivity is formally recognized by the national health care system, and the European Parliament passed legislation in 2006 requiring substitution of less-toxic alternatives for building materials, finishing products, furnishings and equipment may be beneficial to some people with environmental senstivities. The Canadian Human Rights Commission recommends workplace accommodation for chemically sensitive workers.

Charles

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Laptops And MCS

From Chris

Charles,

I saw your 2007 post on MacOpinion re: laptops and MCS (and general toxicity issues). I'm wondering if you have any info on more recent laptops. I have (moderate, I would say) MCS but I have a new job for which it would be useful to have a laptop. Right now, I have a box around my LCD screen and 30 foot cables that connect to a PC in a closet in another room. Works great, just not easy to travel with. I also would like to switch to a Mac.

I ran across one blog that touted the 2008 Macbook Air as being less toxic. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks for any help with this. I know we're all different, but at the same time it's obvious which laptops royally fail (even after years of baking and airing out).

Thanks for your time. I was glad to find your posts--a voice in the wilderness!

Cheers,
Chris

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Hi Chris;

I'll venture that my now three months and a bit old aluminum MacBook could be somewhat less of an off-gasser than my last two Mac laptop purchases were, but I still react to it, and am using it for now in an isolation case positively vented to the outdoors. FWIW, my impression is that Apple laptops are no better or worse in this context than PC units.

With the setup you describe, you're versed in computer isolation techniques. Mine works fine for desktop substitute duty, but would be very cumbersome to take on teh road. My solution for that is to use an older, gassed-off laptop (currently either my 2000 Pismo PowerBook or my 2005 17" PowerBook) for road warrioring, although in the fullness of time I expect that the little unibody will become tolerable.

As you say, we're all different, especially in terms of chemical sensitivity. The unibody MacBook emits no strong odor (at least any that I can detect, although my wife says she can smell a chemical odor from it. Your mileage may vary. The ideal solution is if you can borrow one and try it out in the envirionment(s) where you plan on using it before making a purchase, although that is usually not possible, so it's always a bit if a crap-shoot.

Charles

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PowerBook 2400c Video Slideshow

From Ryan;

Hello Gentlemen:

Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8HPspNjHVw

Ryan
http://www.thisoldmac.com/wordpress

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