... Former workers and their families, along with labor activists, have said that conditions at the company's semiconductor factories have led to higher occurrences of illnesses such as leukemia and other cancers among former semiconductor workers. ... The issue of reproductive toxicity, when children fall ill because of the accumulation of various toxic compounds over a long period in their parents' bodies, has not surfaced very often because many parents blame themselves and keep their children's condition hidden. It is difficult for those who often could not even fathom blaming their company for their own sicknesses to connect their children’s illnesses to their workplace. Samsung Electronics ... [denies] the relationship between work conditions in semiconductor manufacturing and reproductive toxicity. That reaction is similar to the first reports, in 2008, of "semiconductor industrial diseases" -- when former Samsung workers started attributing leukemia and other diseases they had developed to conditions in semiconductor factory work. While Samsung initially denied a link between the incidents and conditions at its plants, Korean courts ruled in several cases that former Samsung semiconductor workers with leukemia were victims of industrial accidents. The ubiquitous technology giant finally issued anapology in May 2014 to workers and their families, promising appropriate compensation  to workers' families.