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By Stevie Smith May 11, 2007, 15:10 GMT
Study: iPods able to crash pacemakers
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Older Talkback
'In one test the pacemaker ceased to function completely.' Ummmm.... what, ah, happened that patient???!!!
What about cell phones?
Cool way to speed up your inheritance?
Just kidding lol
Pace makers don't keep the heart beating. They give the heart a little zap when it gets out of rythm. That's an over simplification but it's the general idea. It will be interesting to see the results of the follow up studies. The age of the people studied doesn't matter. What happens when they hug their grandchildren.
Obviously they didn't test with people, they used functioning pacemakers OUTSIDE of the body.
I hope this isnt just another apple bash cause ... any electrical device has the same effect.. from the alarm clock next to your bed ( which can cause brain tumors- maybe) to your remot control to change the channels so get off the ipod and worry about more important things like where the fork went Im missing the pie
I disagree with the title of this article. While I agree an iPod can disrupt a Pacemaker I seriously doubt that in one study, using just one iPod and one Pacemaker warrants enough merit to say **iPods** caused **Pacemakers** to malfunction. That all the public needs, the media to cause an uproar of a study that in my opinion is non conclusive.
George-
Don't give Dick that ipod!
It wasn't Just 1 Ipod and Just 1 pacemaker. REad the article more carefully. Half of the pacemakers had some kind of interference due to the ipod. Also this study wasnt done outside the patients bodies - it clearly says that patients who had an average age of 77 were tested.
Regarding the comments of 'Reply to Concerned' and 'Jay': NEVER teach someone to write that cannot read. The rest of us have to try to make sense of their inane misunderstandings. Read carefully, write seldom.
I bet Apple is thinking, 'Oh God I hope this isn't true' In the end they may have to put warning stickers on them or in the packaging.
Popular reports of studies are difficult to interpret, because they usually have the details wrong. One thing that isn't made clear is whether any testing at all determined if an iPod can interfere with a pacemaker in normal operation. This test was apparently performed with the pacemakers connected to their external programmer/monitors. In that state, maintaining an active magnetic/RF data link, pacemakers are far more vulnerable to interference. Interfering with the telemetry link is altogether different from interfering with the pacemaker itself.
The world has changed including the old saying
an apple a day keeps the doctor away
You know you'd think a pacemaker would be better shielded against EM interference. I would see this article as a bash against pacemaker manufacturers more than apple. Lots of devices create EM interference....(basically everything with electricity running through them)....thats why easily damaged things are 'shielded' against it...pretty scary.
An iPod can do this and cell phones don't do anything at all?!?!?! I guess the mobile phone industry has more money to buy off journalists, doctors, and scientists than does Apple. Wait for Apple to 'team up' with other MP3 makers to make this problem go away. Plant a seed of doubt and watch it grow.
I'm 30 and have a pacemaker and I know of several people under the age of 30 who also have them and the article makes it sound less serious than it really is. For people who are using this technology as others of 'our' age are this represents a serious health risk. Not everyone is completely dependent on their pacemaker, but I am and if I was one of those unfortunate people who had the complete pacemaker failures I would be dead. This is also related to a problem discovered with Nintendo Wii controllers and it's both comforting and disquieting that these complications are just coming to light.
Rembrandt, despite speaking so authoritatively, absolutely doesn't have a clue as to what he's talking about. In most cases, pacemakers absolutely do cause a patient's heart to beat. Some patients are more pacemaker dependent than others, depending on a number of factors. I have had implanted pacemakers for twenty two years (four of them to date), and am currently pacing 99% of the time, with no underlying rhythm, which means if the pacemaker shuts down, so do I. But life isn't so bad. At the age of 71, I can still run a mile, pacemaker and all, and do twenty minutes of Nordic Track every night.
The study is very vague. This almost sounds as just a marketing tool for microsoft and there zune. A real study would have had a board spectrum of electrical deceive which in turn would result in the same outcome for all of them. All electrically devices give off EMI and would cause the same thing, its ridiculous to say its just the ipod.
I can see Steve Jobs giving the hard sell on this unexpected feature next Macworld ...
'Revolutionary mobile phone, widescreen iPod, breakthrough communicator ... and yes, ladies and gentleman, when some oldie tells you to turn off your music ... guess what you can now do? ... Yes ...'
This is a FLAWED experiment. Try a test with any electronic device held at the same distance from a pacemaker, or any other electronic device for that matter.
This study shows that electical things have a magnetic field. Every 5 year old knows when you put two magnets together cool things happen. Thats all this kid proved. Instead of using two magnets, substitute any electronic devices.
Now we know, with certainty, two electronic devices, held in proximity, effect eachother. Get the kid a nobel prize.
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