Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

iPods and Pacemakers = Malfunction

by Evan Shamoon on May 11, 2007 at 09:01 AM



According to Jay Thaker -- a 17-year-old school student at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan -- iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction. Thaker recently presented his findings to a meeting of heart specialists, and seems to have provided quite a bit of convincing evidence.

The study tested the effect of iPods on 100 patients outfitted with pacemakers; electrical interference was detected half the time when the iPod was held just two inches from the patient's chest for five to 10 seconds.

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

Jongnarangsin is the senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan. He also points out something else worth considering: "Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users."

Not yet, anyway.

From AOL Money and Finance


Related Links:

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular