iPods Declared Pacemaker-Friendly Once Again

Following rumors that "errant electronic noise" coming from Apple's iPods may cause "implantable" cardiac pacemakers to malfunction, cardiac electrophysiologists at Children’s Hospital in Boston have conducted rigorous tests and have concluded that iPods are actually quite safe.

"Many of our pacemaker patients have iPods and other digital music players, and we’ve never seen any problem. But kids and parents bring up this concern all the time, prompting us to do our own study," Dr. Charles Berul, director of the Pacemaker Service at Children’s said, according to The Economic Times.

Dr. Gregory Webster, a cardiac currently training at Children’s Hospital Boston, assembled a team of electrophysiology nurses and physicians in order to conduct tests on 51 patients. Subjects had come in for appointments between September and December last year, according to the aforementioned source.

The pacemakers and ICDs used for testing against four digital music players (an iPod nano, an iPod video, a SanDisk Sansa and a Microsoft Zune) showed no disturbing in their normal activity whatsoever, with cardiac electrophysiologists claiming normal pacemaker activity at both children and young adults requiring pacemakers for their heart conditions.

It has been proved several times in the past that certain devices which emit electro-magnetic waves can and will interfere with pacemakers. The iPod was one of the presumed such devices. Following a student's suggestion that the iPod's functions could interfere with heart regulators, the Food and Drug Administration also released a report confirming that Apple's music players are actually pacemaker-friendly.

Back then (January 2008), researchers tested a 4 gig iPod, an iPod video, an iPod nano, and an iPod shuffle. FDA folks used a bag of saline simulating the human body, placing electromagnetic sensors on it to measure emissions given off by each device. Additionally, they also went and measured the voltage of a pacemaker exposed to the magnetic fields, all this while placing the iPods a half-inch from the sensors, much closer than ever tested before (including the original study).

The devices registered insignificant emissions and so the rumor that iPods could interfere with packemakers was dismissed.

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