iPods can kill you!!

Ranging God · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 8:21 am

Watch out for all you guys with pacemakers!

Quote:

iPods can glitch out pacemakers, teen warns
17-year-old pairs up with heart docs to demonstrate hazard of being hip

Quote:

iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.

The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.

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In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart’s pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.

The study was held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University. The results were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver.

Jay Thaker, lead author of the study and a student at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan, concluded that iPod interference can lead physicians to misdiagnose actual heart function.

Thaker, whose father is an electrophysiologist and whose mother is a rheumatologist, said he asked his dad about a potential interaction between pacemakers and iPods.

“We looked online but didn’t see anything. Then, one of his patients asked him if there would be a problem, so (my father) put me in touch with Dr. Krit (Jongnarangsin),” Thaker said in a telephone interview.

Adbot · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 8:21 am

Anubis · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 9:20 am

Chairs can kill people too.
To be honest, this is more of a good find rather than a bad one. Companies can't test their "new products" on every possible combination of devices. If this is true, and not propaganda, then Apple just found a way to make their iPods better.

Mr Pink · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 11:55 am

People can drown in their own cup, there much more things than just iPod that can kill you.

Mikhail · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 11:59 am

So can a laptop take a turned on laptop, and put it next to a dude with pacemaker, it will malfunction, almost everything that has electromagnetic waves will disrupt the normal function of that thing.

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 1:55 pm

Yeah, well honestly, lots of things trip out pacemakers. People who have pacemakers, for example, aren't allowed to operate the TV and microwave at the same time. Wouldn't that suck? You have to turn the TV off to make a microwave dinner? Lol.

But I guess what I really wanted to say was that there is such a smallllll minority of children with pacemakers that they should just get a lower-frequency ipod, like an ipod shuffle, rather than start this nonsense. It's common knowledge that electronic frequencies interfere with pacemakers. In my opinion, they need to do something to improve the pacemakers, not the ipods.

Evelyn · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 4:56 pm

Solution: shield pacemakers from electronic waves, etc.
Problem: bigger incision made in chest to insert pacemaker.

Adbot · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 4:56 pm

Burnt Joint · **Posted:** May 11th, 2007, 5:22 pm

Mushroom Queen wrote:

Yeah, well honestly, lots of things trip out pacemakers. People who have pacemakers, for example, aren't allowed to operate the TV and microwave at the same time. Wouldn't that suck? You have to turn the TV off to make a microwave dinner? Lol.

But I guess what I really wanted to say was that there is such a smallllll minority of children with pacemakers that they should just get a lower-frequency ipod, like an ipod shuffle, rather than start this nonsense. It's common knowledge that electronic frequencies interfere with pacemakers. In my opinion, they need to do something to improve the pacemakers, not the ipods.

Yeah, they do need to improve pacemakers...but i know my friends grandfather has a pacemaker, he is quite old (73 if you have to know), would never listen to an ipod. Sure, he likes music, but it is just 'too modern' for him. The point im trying to get across is that the majority of people that have pacemakers are the elderly, and a very small percentage of that majority would ever listen to ipods, or any other mp3 player.

~burnt

The Killer · **Posted:** May 12th, 2007, 6:04 am

Alexandr wrote:

People can drown in their own cup, there much more things than just iPod that can kill you.

Everything has potential of killing you. Even a pencil.

Pat · **Posted:** May 12th, 2007, 8:28 am

I agree with MQ, it's not the Ipod's fault, it's the pacemaker's.